It was nine o’clock in the morning when they crucified him. . . .
When it was noon, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. At three o’clock Jesus cried out with a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” . . . Then Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last.
—Mark 15:25, 33–34, 37
LOOK: Crucifix 45 by William Congdon
William Congdon (American, 1912–1998), Crocefisso 45 (Crucifix 45), 1966. Oil on canvas, 152 × 139 cm. Collection of the William G. Congdon Foundation, Milan.
After his conversion to Catholicism in 1959, artist William Congdon [previously], an American expatriate living in Italy, spent the next twenty years of his life painting dozens of Crucifixions. One of them, Crocefisso 45, shows the crucified Christ immersed in near total darkness. His form is barely differentiated from the black background but can just be discerned by the faint band of light that outlines it. Congdon writes that he wanted to portray “a body soaked with pain to the point that one cannot distinguish the body from the pain, almost as though the pain had become a body and not the body a pain.”1
Christ’s head, like a gaping hole, hangs down to rest on his dimly luminescent chest. It’s as if the light of the world has been eclipsed. Art historian Giuseppe Mazzariol wrote of the recurring nero sole (black sun) in Congdon’s work, whose purpose is “to express the spiritual widowhood of a world marked by suffering.”2 Here it expresses the utter desolation of Good Friday.
Fred Licht writes that “in the Crucifixes [of Congdon] the black spot becomes the storm over Golgotha which is repeated every year with the advent of Good Friday, erasing the images from the altars, extinguishing the candles, and plunging the Christian world into deepest night.”3
Notes:
1. William Congdon, Esistenza/Viaggio di pittore americano: Diario (Milan: Jaca Book, 1975), 154.
2. Giuseppe Mazzariol, Introduzione a William Congdon, exh. cat. (Ferrara, 1981).
3. Fred Licht, “The Art of William Congdon,” in Fred Licht, Peter Selz, and Rodolfo Balzarotti, William Congdon (Jaca Book: Milan, 1995): 11–58.
The sun’s gone dim And the sky’s turned black ’Cause I loved her And she didn’t love back
“The Sun’s Gone Dim and the Sky’s Turned Black” by the late Icelandic composer Jóhann Jóhannsson (1969–2018) blends, as does most of his work, traditional orchestration with contemporary electronic elements. The elegiac lyrics, which repeat multiple times over the nearly six-minute runtime, are adapted from “Two-Volume Novel” by Dorothy Parker, a four-line poem about unrequited love.
This piece was inspired by a recording of an IBM mainframe computer that Jóhannsson’s father, Jóhann Gunnarsson, made on a reel-to-reel tape machine in the 1970s. (Gunnarsson was an IBM engineer and one of Iceland’s first computer programmers, who used early hardware to compose melodies during his downtime at work.) It was recorded by a sixty-piece string orchestra, with Jóhannsson on vocals.
Credit goes to the Rabbit Room not only for this find but also for connecting it to Good Friday. (I found the song on their Lent playlist.) Imagine the speaker as Jesus on the cross, speaking to the world that he so loved (John 3:16) but who rejected him. Even the sky mourns with him as the sun veils her face. All is dark and seemingly lost.
POEM SEQUENCE: “The Unfolding” by Michael Stalcup: Michael Stalcup has published a sequence of five short poems in Solum Journal that “tells the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection by unfolding five words that take us from Maundy Thursday through Easter Sunday,” he says. “I wrote these poems in a very unusual way, restricting myself to words that could be formed from the letters in each poem’s title. . . . This poetic form calls for creativity within intense limitations, which seems fitting for Holy Week—a time when Jesus crafted the most beautiful art this world has ever known within the constraints of his own suffering and death.” Stalcup has also presented them on Instagram (click on the image below).
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ARTICLE: “Don’t Rush Past Good Friday” by Brian Zahnd: Pastor and author Brian Zahnd cautions us not to shortchange the cross on the way to Easter, but rather to slow down and dwell there, beholding the crucified Christ.
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SONGS:
>> “Friday Morning” by Sydney Carter, performed by Timothy Renner: This Good Friday song by the English folk musician Sydney Bertram Carter (1915–2004) is difficult—one might even say blasphemous. That’s because it’s voiced from the perspective of the “bad” thief, who is spewing hatred and bitterness over his fate and blaming God for having created such a cruel world. But we’re aware of an irony in the refrain that the convicted man is not: “It’s God they ought to crucify / Instead of you and me, / I said to the carpenter / A-hanging on the tree.”
>> “Go to Hell” by Nick Chambers: This song is a setting of a poem by Pádraig Ó Tuama from his collection Sorry for Your Troubles (Canterbury Press Norwich, 2013). The title is shocking, I know, but it’s derived from a line in the Apostles’ Creed, where we Christians profess that after Jesus died, he “descended into hell.” The singer-songwriter, Nick Chambers, writes in the YouTube video description: “In between Good Friday and Easter Sunday is possibly strangest day of the Christian year. On Holy Saturday, not only is Jesus, the God-Man, in the grave; traditions abound about his descent to the dead, his ‘harrowing of hell.’ What does it mean for the coming down of God-with-us not to end on earth but ‘under the earth,’ extending hope to the furthest regions of human pain and abandonment? Such a question deserves more poetry than explanation.”
“Go to hell” is a slang expression of scorn or rejection, to which Jesus was no stranger. As in the previous song, there’s an irony here, in telling Jesus to go to hell—because he did. Literally. Ó Tuama meditates on how Jesus shares in our vulnerabilities and yearnings and seeks to pull us out of the hells we’re in and redeem our stories.
Hear the poem read by the poet here, or at the end of the Stations of the Cross video below. “he is called to hell, this man / he is called to glory . . .”
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GUIDED MEDITATION: “Stations of the Cross, Good Friday, 2020” by Pádraig Ó Tuama: In 2020 the poet-theologian Pádraig Ó Tuama put together this twenty-minute video reflection for Good Friday structured around the Stations of the Cross, consisting of photos of art he’s taken and the praying of collects he’s written. (Several of the collects can be found in his book Daily Prayer with the Corrymeela Community from 2017.) The throughline is a set of stained-glass Stations by Sheila Corcoran at the Church of Our Lady Queen of Heaven at Dublin Airport; others are by Jong-Tae Choi, Gib Singleton, Sieger Köder, Richard P. Campbell, and Audrey Frank Anastasi.
Sheila Corcoran, Station 6: Veronica Wipes the Face of Jesus, ca. 1964. Stained glass, Church of Our Lady Queen of Heaven, Dublin Airport. Photo: Patrick Comerford.Richard P. Campbell (Dunghutti/Gumbaynggirr, 1958–), Station 10: Jesus is stripped of his garments, 2001. Reconciliation Church, La Perouse, Sydney, Australia.
But before stepping onto Jesus’s Via Dolorosa, Ó Tuama considers Judas, sharing a stained glass panel by Harry Clarke that illustrates a medieval legend about the Irish monastic saint Brendan the Navigator. According to the Navigatio Sancti Brendani Abbatis, on one of his voyages St. Brendan encountered Judas at sea, tied to an iceberg. He learned that an angel had taken pity on Judas in hell and given him a reprieve of one hour to cool himself from the flames of judgment. Ó Tuama then prays for those who, like Judas, are tormented by guilt and see no way out.
He closes with a reading of his poem “Go to Hell” (set to music in the previous roundup item).
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SONG: “For the Songless Hearts” by Jon Guerra: “There’s a lot of hubbub around Easter weekend in churches. And for good reason,” says singer-songwriter Jon Guerra. “But our hearts can’t always cooperate with the prescribed mood of the Easter season: ‘Celebrate! Be happy! Sing!’ Sometimes the last thing we are able to do is sing. Thankfully, Good Friday and Easter are not about mustering a mood. Good Friday and Easter are about remembering that there is One who meets us in our life and meets us in our death. He sings for us—and over us—when we can’t.”
That’s what “For the Songless Hearts” is about—a single released in 2017, and which Guerra sings with his wife, Valerie. In a Mockingbird blog post about it, Guerra admonishes, “Remember that before the tomb was empty, it was full. ‘When he was laid in the tomb, he laid right next to you.’” Jesus knew the depths of sorrow and the sting of death. We are not alone in such experiences.
. . . carrying the cross by himself he went out to what is called the Place of the Skull, which in Hebrew is called Golgotha. There they crucified him . . .
—John 19:17–18
LOOK: White Mountain by Ihor Paneyko
Ihor Paneyko (Игоря Панейка) (Ukrainian, 1957–), White Mountain, 2011. Egg tempera on gessoed board.
LISTEN: “Solus ad victimam” (Alone to Sacrifice Thou Goest, Lord) | Original Latin words by Peter Abelard, second quarter of 12th century; English translation by Helen Waddell, 1929 | Music by Kenneth Leighton, 1973 | Performed by St. Olaf Cantorei, dir. John Ferguson, on Hidden in Humbleness: Meditations for Holy Week and Easter, 2010
Alone to sacrifice thou goest, Lord, Giving thyself to Death, whom thou hast slain. For us, thy wretched folk, is [there] any word, Who know that for our sins this is thy pain?
For they are ours, O Lord, our deeds, our deeds. Why must thou suffer torture for our sin? Let our hearts suffer for thy passion, Lord, That very suffering may thy mercy win.
This is that night of tears, the three days’ space, Sorrow abiding of the eventide, Until the day break with the risen Christ, And hearts that sorrowed shall be satisfied.
So may our hearts share in thine anguish, Lord, That they may sharers of thy glory be. Heavy with weeping may the three days pass, To win the laughter of thine Easter Day.
“In Parasceve Domini: III. Nocturno,” whose first line is “Solus ad victimam procedis, Domine,” is a Latin hymn by the French scholastic philosopher, theologian, and poet Peter Abelard (1079–1142). It appears in his collection Hymnarius Paraclitensis—a major contribution to medieval Latin hymnody—and was sung in the night office (Nocturns) of prayers on Good Friday.
Today it is best known through its modern choral setting of the English by British composer and pianist Kenneth Leighton (1929–1988). Dr. David Ouzts, the minister of music and liturgy at Church of the Holy Communion in Memphis, says this is “one of the most effective musical settings of any anthem of the 1,000-plus octavos in our parish music library.” He continues:
This anthem is one of those with harmonies and sonorities that may not sound correct when they are. Worshipers will hear the sparseness of the choir singing in simple same-note octaves, and in the next moment, dissonances between the choral voices will appear.
Though this 12th century text is most certainly a Passiontide text, my favorite aspect is that it foreshadows Easter and the Resurrection.
The wordplay of the music that accompanies “laughter” in the text is notable. The choral voices are high in their tessituras, and the full choir ends literally on a high note, after which the organ accompaniment steals the show with great dissonant chords, only to land on a huge, bright E Major chord.
The hymn invites us to follow Christ to Golgotha, beholding his suffering so that we might be moved to contrition and, clinging to God’s mercy, rise to newness of life—or, as the wonderful last line puts it, “win the laughter of [Christ’s] Easter Day.” The fourth stanza alludes to Romans 8:17, where the apostle Paul writes that we are “heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if we in fact suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.” Paul speaks elsewhere of believers being “crucified with Christ” (Gal. 2:20)—see my visual commentaries on this passage—and “baptized into his death” (Rom. 6:3) as well as being raised with him.
Jesus may have gone “alone to sacrifice”—but the fruits of that sacrifice abound to all who would eat. Praise be to God.
As we enter the Paschal Triduum, let us weep for our sins and for the innocent Lamb who was slain to atone for them. Let us also look with hope toward daybreak.
Those who had arrested Jesus took him to Caiaphas the high priest, where the scribes and the elders had gathered. . . .
Now the chief priests and the whole council were looking for false testimony against Jesus so that they might put him to death, but they found none, though many false witnesses came forward. At last two came forward and said, “This fellow said, ‘I am able to destroy the temple of God and to build it in three days.’”
The high priest stood up and said, “Have you no answer? What is it that they testify against you?”
But Jesus was silent. Then the high priest said to him, “I put you under oath before the living God, tell us if you are the Messiah, the Son of God.”
Jesus said to him, “You have said so. But I tell you,
From now on you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven.”
—Matthew 26:57–64
LOOK: Christ before the High Priest by Gerrit van Honthorst
Gerrit van Honthorst (Dutch, 1590–1656), Christ before the High Priest, ca. 1617. Oil on canvas, 272 × 183 cm. National Gallery, London.
The Rev. Katherine Hedderly, associate vicar for ministry at St Martin-in-the-Fields, reflected on this painting as part of the online course “Inspired to Follow: Art and the Bible Story”:
Jesus places himself totally in the place of light and truth. But we see here, and will see again as we journey to the cross, that it is a lonely place. I wonder if we’re prepared to stand in the lonely place for the sake of the truth. . . .
Opposite Jesus in the painting we find Caiaphas, seated. And in front of Caiaphas, on the table, the books of the Mosaic Law are open. All the power of the religious authority is being brought to bear. Caiaphas has all the weight and authority in the scene, the two witnesses standing arms folded behind him in cowardly judgement. Caiaphas’s finger is very prominent. He is accusing, judgmental. . . .
Jesus’ silence condemns the judge and the witnesses; and by his silence he refuses to accept the authority of the trial. In the face of this onslaught from the religious hierarchy Jesus is the one with real authority.
LISTEN:“Sanhedrin” by Nicholas Andrew Barber, on Stations (2020)
When the day had come When the dreadful day had come All the people gathered round They were the powers that be
The priests, the scribes, and the elders Took their counsel, all eyes on this king Of a different kind Oh, he was a king of a different kind
They asked him plain and simple Oh, but their intentions were far more complicated Minds and hearts are so complicated Minds and hearts are so complicated
You are the Christ Oh, you are the Son of Man You are seated at the right hand of the power of God Over all the powers that be
You needed to say no more They’d heard enough They heard his words But not what he said
When they had sung the hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.
Then Jesus said to [his disciples], “You will all fall away because of me this night, for it is written, ‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.’ But after I am raised up, I will go ahead of you to Galilee.”
Peter said to him, “Even if all fall away because of you, I will never fall away.”
Jesus said to him, “Truly I tell you, this very night, before the cock crows, you will deny me three times.”
Peter said to him, “Even though I must die with you, I will not deny you.” And so said all the disciples.
Then Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to his disciples, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.” He took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee and began to be grieved and agitated. Then he said to them, “My soul is deeply grieved, even to death; remain here, and stay awake with me.” And going a little farther, he threw himself on the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me, yet not what I want but what you want.”
Then he came to the disciples and found them sleeping, and he said to Peter, “So, could you not stay awake with me one hour? Stay awake and pray that you may not come into the time of trial; the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”
Again he went away for the second time and prayed, “My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done.” Again he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were heavy.
So leaving them again, he went away and prayed for the third time, saying the same words. Then he came to the disciples and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and taking your rest? Now the hour is at hand, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Get up, let us be going. Look, my betrayer is at hand.”
—Matthew 26:30–46
LOOK: Exceeding Sorrowful by Douglas Porter
Douglas Porter (Canadian, 1949–), Exceeding Sorrowful, 2023. Acrylic on canvas, 36 × 24 in.
Doug Porter is a painter, video artist and editor, and graphic designer from Orillia, Ontario. His painting Exceeding Sorrowful portrays the religious subject known as the Agony in the Garden. The painting’s title comes from the King James Version of Matthew 26:38, where Jesus tells his inner circle of disciples (Peter, James, and John), “My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death: tarry ye here, and watch with me.”
He had just eaten the Passover seder with them and the rest of the Twelve, pronouncing some strange words at the table: “Take, eat; this is my body,” he said as he broke the bread. And as he raised the wineglass, he commanded them, “Drink from it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins . . .”
Singing a hymn and going out to the Mount of Olives, he then foretold his disciples’ desertion of him. Adapting God’s words from Zechariah 13:7, he told them that he, their shepherd, would be struck, and they, his sheep, would be scattered. They all protested, but their faithlessness would soon be revealed.
Using rich hues reminiscent of stained glass, Porter shows Christ with his eyes closed as if a wave of pain is passing over him, and his brow anxiously furrowed. (The head of Christ is based on a painted wood crucifix by Coppo di Marcovaldo of Italy, from around 1260.) He is broken, shattered; the three jagged shards of him pull away to reveal a dark void. At the top the rim of the cup of suffering is just visible, which he pleads with God to remove. But as he communes with the Father, he becomes increasingly bolstered in his resolve to carry out his mission to the very end.
On the right is a shepherd’s staff, also broken, representing Christ’s words about his being struck. Three of his “sheep” are sprawled out on the ground. The figures of Peter, James, and John are based on a fifteenth-century icon of the Transfiguration by Theophanes the Greek. These three disciples on the Mount of Olives had been privileged earlier to see their Lord gloriously transfigured on another mount: Tabor. And yet despite having received that divine vision, in Gethsemane they fall asleep, failing to support Jesus in his final hours.
In a few days, Jesus’s exceeding sorrow and pain would be transfigured. But on that Thursday and Friday, he drank that cup to its dregs.
LISTEN: “Miracle” by Dave Von Bieker, on Bridge Songs ONE by Urban Bridge Church (2007) | MP3 provided by permission of the artist
Update, 3/28/24: Von Bieker told me my interest in the song has spurred him on to remake it! Here’s his new recording from this week:
This garden grows death And it’s damp and it’s dark Your three closest friends Are asleep on the bark Of a tree that once grew tall Offering its shade But it’s dead and it’s mourning It’s black and decayed
And you search for a place That is far enough out So your voice won’t be heard When you cry and you shout Have you come here to bargain? Have you come to ask why? Is that fear or pure sorrow Buried in your eyes?
And isn’t it time To turn water into wine? To drink a different cup? To forget what’s on your mind? It seems a good time To take up Satan’s deal To leap from tall buildings Without bruising a heel
But now’s not the time for miracles Now’s not the time for trap doors and way outs Oh, now’s not the time for miracles Everything comes in its time
It’s a strange sort of prayer More a fight to the death You walk back to your watchmen There isn’t one left They’ve all slept through this spiritual Solar eclipse They don’t get it, how could they Who would have guessed this?
And you drop to your knees There’s no way out, not yet And your pores are still dripping With blood, oh, with sweat Jacob left with a limp Moses’ tongue couldn’t find An excuse, Paul be blinded Why fight him when you know it’s no use? When you know, well
That now’s not the time for miracles Now’s not the time for trap doors and way outs No, now’s not the time for miracles Everything comes in its time
You sit at her bedside And cry to the roof I don’t know why I hold on When I have no proof But there’s something in knowing You knew how this felt Yeah, there’s something in sharing This hand that we’re dealt
And isn’t it time to say, “Wake up, arise! Come on, Take up your mat! Come on And open your eyes!” Isn’t it time now? He’s sick, close to death He’s been in the grave for four days Why not yet?
But now’s not the time for miracles Now’s not the time for trap doors and way outs No, now’s not the time for miracles And everything comes in its time And everything comes in its time
Dave Von Bieker is a singer-songwriter from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, who performs and records under the artist name “Von Bieker.” He wrote “Miracle” while part of a songwriting group connected to Urban Bridge Church, a Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada church plant in downtown Edmonton that existed from 2006 to 2015. “We [were] writing songs that dance around the edges of the sacred and songs that wade right through it,” he said. “We [were] questioning and shouting with our songs.”
Starting in 2007, each year the collective shared some of their work at a live concert event they dubbed Bridge Songs and released an album. “Miracle” is from the first such album, Bridge Songs ONE. This album is no longer available, but Von Bieker gave me permission to share this song from it, which I learned about last year as a subscriber to his newsletter, Von Bieker Backstage.
The narrator of the song observes Christ’s distress in the garden of Gethsemane and questions why he doesn’t work a miracle to avoid the cross. Then the refrain comes in—perhaps in Christ’s voice, perhaps in the voice of the concessionary narrator—saying that “now’s not the time for miracles” but suggesting that the miracle of resurrection will come in its time.
A bloody crucifixion is probably not the path to victory we would have imagined, but it’s the path God in his wisdom laid out and took and by doing so showed com-passion (literally “suffering with”) on humanity. The physical, mental, and spiritual anguish that God in Christ endured speaks to God’s awesome love, which comes alongside us in our own suffering.
In the third verse “Miracle” appears to shift to a contemporary scene of a loved one (daughter? wife? mother? friend?) lying gravely ill in bed. Why doesn’t God intervene to miraculously heal? It then moves back again in time to the story of Lazarus, who died. His sister Martha chastises Jesus for his delayed arrival to Lazarus’s bedside. Upon seeing the four-days-dead body of his friend in the tomb, “Jesus began to weep” and was “greatly disturbed” (John 11:35, 38). Then, after giving space to his grief, he calls into the dark cavern, “Lazarus, come out!”—and wouldn’t you know, Lazarus comes stumbling out alive! A delayed miracle.
I love how this song enfolds the story of Christ into our own and that of the Old and New Testament saints, who wrestled with God and stammered their doubts and had their obstinacy obliterated by blinding light, or their fervent belief validated by a brother’s sudden awakening from the grave.
In addition to writing songs, in September 2011 Von Bieker founded Bleeding Heart Art Space, a community space dedicated to exploring art, faith, and justice. He served as director, or “arts chaplain,” until June 2018. Bleeding Heart started as a ministry of Urban Bridge Church, and when that church closed, Bleeding Heart was grafted into St. Faith’s Anglican Church, under whose aegis it remains active today, organizing pop-up solo and group exhibitions and hosting ArtLucks for local artists to share what they’ve been working on.
If I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you. . . .
I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.
Hyeyoung Shin (Korean American, 1974–), We Are, 2010. Performance, graphite drawings on paper and paper garments, and lithographs on muslin. Big Orbit Gallery, Buffalo, New York.Foot-washing performance by Hyeyoung Shin at the opening of We Are, April 23, 2010, Big Orbit Gallery, Buffalo, New York.
Hyeyoung Shin is a South Korean–born, Kansas City–based artist whose work explores human vulnerability, humility, intimacy, empathy, interpersonal relationships, and belonging.
We Are is the name of a solo exhibition of hers from 2010 consisting of life-size drawings and lithographs of human feet and a foot-washing performance. Shin executed thirty-four graphite drawings on paper as well as on paper garments that she custom-made. The structural anchor of the installation was five muslin panels, each ten yards long, suspended from the ceiling and draped like a hammock. On the upper reaches of each were lithographs of two pairs of legs, and in the bed of the hammock lay a mat, a pillow, and a paper dress. Leading up to the hammock was a long sheet of paper with twelve sets of footprints arranged in two rows, evoking Jesus’s twelve disciples.
Graphite drawing on handmade paper garment with hanji, 2009Lithographs on muslin, approx. 288 × 30 in., 2009–10Graphite drawings on paper, 42 × 64 in., 2009
Shin enacted the foot washings herself. She said that “through the experiences, I began to learn again how to practice love akin to holding my mother’s feet” as she lay dying of a terminal illness. The physical proximity and tender touch at that gallery event opened up channels of empathy between the artist and participants.
LISTEN: “Reverie: This is my will,” arr. Anne-Marie O’Farrell, on Easter in Ireland: Music for the Paschal Season (2020)
The Rev. Dr. Anne-Marie O’Farrell, a harpist, composer, and Church of Ireland minister from Dublin, wrote this reverie on the Maundy Thursday hymn “This Is My Will” for solo lever harp in 2019. (A reverie is an instrumental piece suggesting a dreamy or musing state.) The Jesuit priest James Quinn (1918–2010) of Scotland wrote the hymn text, reproduced below, in 1969, a paraphrase of John 15:11–17, pairing it with a traditional Irish suantraí (lullaby) melody. It is that melody—which in Ireland has come to be associated with Holy Week, thanks to Quinn—that O’Farrell has arranged here. Purchase sheet music for O’Farrell’s harp reverie, or an arrangement for SATB voices and solo.
This is my will, my one command, that love should dwell among you all. This is my will, that you should love as I have shown that I love you.
No greater love a man can have than that he die to save his friends. You are my friends if you obey all I command that you should do.
I call you now no longer slaves; no slave knows all his master does. I call you friends, for all I hear my Father say you hear from me.
You chose not me, but I chose you, that you should go and bear much fruit. I called you out that you in me should bear much fruit that will abide.
All that you ask my Father dear for my name’s sake you shall receive. This is my will, my one command, that love should dwell in each, in all.
Jesus speaks this discourse after washing his disciples’ feet the day before his death. The name traditionally accorded to Thursday of Holy Week—Maundy Thursday—comes from the Latin word mandatum, “command,” referencing this passage.
When they were approaching Jerusalem . . . they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it, and he sat on it. Many people spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut in the fields. Then those who went ahead and those who followed were shouting,
Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David! Hosanna in the highest heaven!
Then he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple . . .
—Mark 11:1, 7–11
LOOK: Palm Sunday by Kai Althoff
Kai Althoff (German, 1966–), Palmsonntag (Palm Sunday), 2002. Boat varnish, watercolor, and tinted paper on canvas, 70 × 90 cm. Private collection, Berlin.
In Kai Althoff’s painting of Jesus entering Jerusalem on a donkey, the background pulsates with color and people from all walks of life lay down their garments to carpet his path. There’s a nun and a monk in their habits; two bishops in dalmatics, one of whom casts his mozzetta at Christ’s feet; a choirboy; folks in a coat and tails and party dresses; and others in overalls, sweaters, and wool skirts. On the left, a backpacker passes by, looking behind him with curiosity at the hubbub, while at the bottom right a crowd of haloed people point and gaze—one man even yanks the collar of a friend, trying to pull him closer to the front for a better view.
Several of those present wave palm branches and shout, “Hosanna!,” meaning “Save us!” They quote Psalm 118:25–26: “Save us, we beseech you, O LORD! O LORD, we beseech you, give us success! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the LORD.” The people recognize Jesus as their delivering Messiah and celebrate.
LISTEN: “Hosanna” by Jacques Berthier, 1978 | Performed by the Paul Leddington Wright Singers on Songs of Taizé, vol. 4 (2006)
Hosanna, hosanna! Hosanna in excelsis!
This Palm Sunday canon (round) is from Taizé, a community of lay brothers in southern France who welcome pilgrims, especially young ones, from all over the world. The Latin in excelsis means “in the highest.”
Though the Hebrew expression that “Hosanna” transliterates was used by Jews as a supplication, a plea, today Christians often use “Hosanna” as a shout of jubilation, an acclamation of praise, in recognition of the salvation Jesus has wrought—so instead of the imperative “Save!,” it’s the exclamative “Salvation!” I think both meanings can hold simultaneously.
This is the first post in a daily series (running through Saturday) in which I’ll highlight a handful of events from Holy Week by choosing a visual artwork and a piece of music that engage with that event. The posts will all be short like this one—I imagine people spending ten minutes or so with each—and are an invitation to prayer and contemplation. For additional music, see the Art & Theology Holy Week Playlist on Spotify.
“Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain, but if it dies it bears much fruit.”
—John 12:24
LOOK: Untitled by Kwon Young-Woo
Kwon Young-Woo (Korean, 1926–2013), Untitled, 2002. Korean paper on canvas, 51 3/16 × 51 3/16 in. Photo: Chunho Ahn, courtesy the artist’s estate and Kukje Gallery.
Before the fruit is ripened by the sun, Before the petals or the leaves uncoil, Before the first fine silken root is spun, A seed is dropped and buried in the soil.
Before the Easter alleluias ring, Before the massive rock is rolled aside, Before the fear of death has lost its sting, A just and loving man is crucified.
Before we gain the grace that comes through loss, Before we live by more than bread and breath, Before we lift in joy an empty cross, We face with Christ the seed’s renewing death.
Olivewood crucifix, South Africa, 1978. Source: Christliche Kunst in Afrika, p. 263
LISTEN: “Indodana” (Son), traditional isiXhosa song from South Africa | Arr. Michael Barrett and Ralf Schmitt, adapt. André van der Merwe, 2014 | Performed by the Stellenbosch University Choir, 2014
You took your own son
Who lived among us [wailing]
(Repeat)
The Son of God
Was crucified [wailing]
(Repeat)
Oh Father! Father, Father Jehovah!
Father! [wailing]
(Repeat)
[source]
This song so well captures the mood of mourning that characterizes Good Friday, when the Son of God was slain. “Hololo” and “helele” are wordless expressions of grief. So is the “Zjem zjem zja” sung by the basses, like heaving sobs, on the title word in verse 2. One soprano who performed this piece said that singing the “Oh’s” above the melody felt like singing tears.
Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to them, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.” He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.”
Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.”
Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. “Couldn’t you men keep watch with me for one hour?” he asked Peter. “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”
He went away a second time and prayed, “My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done.”
When he came back, he again found them sleeping, because their eyes were heavy. So he left them and went away once more and prayed the third time, saying the same thing.
Then he returned to the disciples and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and resting? Look, the hour has come, and the Son of Man is delivered into the hands of sinners. Rise! Let us go! Here comes my betrayer!”
—Matthew 26:36–46 NIV, emphasis added
LOOK: Agony in the Garden by Fra Angelico [HT: John Skillen]
Fra Angelico (Italian, ca. 1387–1455), Agony in the Garden, ca. 1450. Fresco, 177 × 147 cm. Cell 34, Convent of San Marco, Florence.
This fresco is from one of the forty-four cells in the Dominican convent of San Marco in Florence whose walls Fra Angelico and his assistants painted with religious scenes in the mid-fifteenth century. The friars who lived at San Marco—of which the artist, whose nickname means “Angelic Brother,” was one—used these paintings for private meditation.
Here we see Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane pleading with God the Father to let the cup of suffering, held out by an angel, pass him by. As he prays in agony, his disciples James, John, and Peter nod off just a stone’s throw away. Jesus had asked them to stay awake and pray with him, but their tiredness gets the better of them. In their friend’s hour of deepest need, they fail him.
By contrast—and this is unique!—Mary and Martha, two sisters from Bethany who are also followers of Jesus, are awake and alert under an open loggia, diligently praying and studying God’s word. Perhaps Mary points, in the book in her lap, to the passage of the Suffering Servant in Isaiah 53, recognizing Christ in it, or to the book of Exodus, where the Israelites celebrate their first Passover by smearing the blood of a lamb over their doors. Perhaps Martha prays that the Father would grant Jesus discernment of his will and the strength to follow through with it—that he would sustain him all the way to the cross and beyond.
While the male disciples on the other side of the wall fall asleep, heads in hands, the women watch and wait through the night, exemplars of faithfulness. They trust the prophecies and keep vigil, supporting their Lord in his suffering.
LISTEN: “Stay with Me” by Jacques Berthier, 1984 | Performed by the Taizé Community Choir on Songs of Taizé: O Lord, Hear My Prayer & My Soul Is at Rest, 1999
Stay with me Remain here with me Watch and pray Watch and pray
The words from this Taizé chant come from Jesus’s words in Matthew 26:38, 41 (cf. Mark 14:34, 38). He and his disciples have just finished the Passover Seder, and with full bellies, three of them follow Jesus up to an olive grove, which was perhaps a favorite prayer spot. But they neglect his instruction to stay awake and pray with him.
How can we remain with Christ this Maundy Thursday?
To “keep vigil” this night is to be fully present to Christ’s suffering and spiritually awake to his will and way.
Art & Theology 