Music for the Third Sunday of Easter

9:00

Prelude – Beautiful One

Processional - Open the Eyes of My Heart Lord

Sequence – Alleluia No. 1

Offertory – Mighty to Save

Communion – The Disciples Knew the Lord Jesus

Now the Green Blade Riseth

I Love You Lord

Recessional – Shout to the North

11:00

Prelude - Prelude and Fugue in C Major, JS Bach

Processional -  180 He is risen, he is risen!

Hymn of Praise – 204 Now the Green Blade Riseth (vs. 1&3)

Sequence 205 Good Christians all, rejoice and sing!

Offertory – I Got Me Flowers, Daniel Burton

Communion – 186 Christ Jesus lay in death’s strong bands

305 Come, risen Lord, and deign to be our guest

662 Abide with me: fast falls the eventide

Recessional 296 We know that Christ is raised and dies no more

5:00

Prelude - Now the Green Blade Riseth, Mark Hayes

Processional -  180 He is risen, he is risen!

Sequence 205 Good Christians all, rejoice and sing!

Recessional 296 We know that Christ is raised and dies no more

Several years ago I was talking with a friend about our upcoming music for the second or third Sunday of Easter and she commented that Easter is over, why are we doing Easter music? Ah! To quote another friend, Easter is so big that we can’t limit it to just one Sunday! We continue with Easter music this third Sunday of celebrating.

 At 11:00, the choir will be singing a stunning anthem on a poem by George Herbert. As many of you might know, Herbert was an Anglican priest. He was noted for unfailing care for his parishioners, bringing the sacraments to them when they were ill, and providing food and clothing for those in need. Unfortunately, he died a mere 3 years after taking holy orders. Shortly before his death, he sent the manuscript of The Temple, a collection of over one hundred and fifty devotional lyrics, to Nicholas Ferrar, the founder of a semi-monastic Anglican religious community at Little Gidding, reportedly telling him to publish the poems if he thought they might "turn to the advantage of any dejected poor soul", otherwise to burn them. Thanks to Ferrar, they were published not long after his death.

The poem Easter is from this collection. It is Herbert’s personal reworking of Psalm 57 and is an act of emotional confession. It is a picture of a spiritual journey. The first three stanzas evoke an excited tension which is replaced in the last three stanzas by a simplicity that Herbert believes is the true essence of Easter. Our anthem is the text of the last three verses – “I Got Me Flowers”.

'Easter'

Rise heart; thy Lord is risen. Sing his praise
               Without delays,
Who takes thee by the hand, that thou likewise
               With him mayst rise:
That, as his death calcined thee to dust,
His life may make thee gold, and much more just.

Awake, my lute, and struggle for thy part
               With all thy art.
The cross taught all wood to resound his name,
               Who bore the same.
His stretched sinews taught all strings, what key
Is best to celebrate this most high day.

Consort both heart and lute, and twist a song
               Pleasant and long:
Or since all music is but three parts vied
               And multiplied;
O let thy blessed Spirit bear a part,
And make up our defects with his sweet art.

               I got me flowers to straw thy way:
               I got me boughs off many a tree:
               But thou wast up by break of day,
               And brought’st thy sweets along with thee.

               The Sun arising in the East,
               Though he give light, and th’East perfume;
               If they should offer to contest
               With thy arising, they presume.

               Can there be any day but this,
               Though many suns to shine endeavour?
               We count three hundred, but we miss:
               There is but one, and that one ever.

The last three verses are seen as a song of joyful celebration. The poet sees the day of Christ’s resurrection as unsurpassed in glory. 'Can there be any day but this' - the sun that rises each day of the year cannot shine as brightly as the Son of God as he brings light to the world.