Tag: Triumphal Entry

Palm Sunday: Jerusalem, Jerusalem

Victoria Emily Jones1 Comment

LOOK: Palm Sunday by Justin O’Brien

O'Brien, Justin_Palm Sunday triptych
Justin O’Brien (Australian, 1917–1996), Palm Sunday, 1962. Oil on canvas, 45.5 × 62 cm.

This triptych (three-paneled artwork) by Australian artist Justin O’Brien portrays three scenes from the life of Christ. On the left wing is the Baptism of Christ, where he’s anointed by God’s Spirit for his messianic role, and on the right is the Miraculous Draught of Fishes, a story of miraculous abundance. The center panel shows Jesus about to enter the gates of a hilltop city representing Jerusalem. He rides a donkey and is dressed in red, the color of martyrdom. One man lays down his cloak before Jesus’s dusty path as a sign of reverence. Now the people welcome him in, but in just a few short days many will turn on him.

O’Brien grew up in a Catholic household in Sydney. In 1948–49 he visited Italy and fell in love with the work of the Proto- and Early Renaissance painters from Tuscany, like Duccio and Piero della Francesca. Most of O’Brien’s paintings are on religious subjects, despite his renunciation of Catholicism in 1954. Though he self-identified as agnostic for the second half of his life, he continued to be artistically inspired by the stories of the New Testament. He moved to Rome in 1967 and spent the remainder of his days there, returning to his home country of Australia every few years for exhibitions.  

LISTEN: “Jerusalem Interlude,” excerpted from “The Holy City” | Words by Frederick E. Weatherly, 1892 | Music by Stephen Adams (pseudonym of Michael Maybrick), 1892; arr. Noble Caine, 1946 | Performed by the Aeolians of Oakwood University on Aeolianology Acappella, vol. 2, 2015

Jerusalem, Jerusalem
Lift up your gates and sing
Hosanna in the highest
Hosanna to your king

This is the refrain of the Victorian choral ballad “The Holy City” by the English lawyer, author, lyricist, and broadcaster Frederick E. Weatherly (best known for writing “Danny Boy”) and his regular collaborator, the English composer Michael Maybrick, who published under the pen name Stephen Adams. The song became hugely popular in the UK and the US at the beginning of the twentieth century, and is even mentioned in James Joyce’s Ulysses (1920). It is sung by early Hollywood musical superstar Jeanette MacDonald in the 1936 film San Francisco.

Lyrics to the complete song are below, as is a video performance by the Aeolians from 2020:

Last night I lay a-sleeping
There came a dream so fair
I stood in old Jerusalem
Beside the temple there
I heard the children singing
And ever as they sang
Methought the voice of angels
From heav’n in answer rang

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem!
Lift up your gates and sing
Hosanna in the highest
Hosanna to your king!”

And then methought my dream was chang’d
The streets no longer rang
Hush’d were the glad Hosannas
The little children sang
The sun grew dark with mystery
The morn was cold and chill
As the shadow of a cross arose
Upon a lonely hill

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem!
Hark! how the angels sing
Hosanna in the highest
Hosanna to your king!”

And once again the scene was chang’d
New earth there seem’d to be
I saw the Holy City
Beside the tideless sea
The light of God was on its streets
The gates were open wide
And all who would might enter
And no one was denied
No need of moon or stars by night
Or sun to shine by day
It was the new Jerusalem
That would not pass away

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem!
Sing, for the night is o’er!
Hosanna in the highest!
Hosanna for evermore!”

The song’s speaker has a dream about Christ’s celebrated entry into Jerusalem, with crowds surrounding him and shouting his praises. But then the mood turns dark and hushed as a cross is erected on Golgotha and the newly hailed king is crucified. However, the mood revolves back to one of celebration in the final verse as the New Jerusalem comes down, permanently displacing all sorrow, its gates thrown open wide in universal welcome and the wounded but victorious Jesus seated on the throne.

The Aeolians’ isolation of the first refrain for their “Jerusalem Interlude,” which echoes Psalm 24:7–10 [previously], makes a perfect antiphon for Palm Sunday. Though the words are exultant, the music has an aching quality that foreshadows the suffering that is soon to come and that matches the tone of Jesus’s lament over Jerusalem on this day: “As he came near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, ‘If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes’” (Luke 19:41–42; cf. Matt. 23:37–39).

The American jazz composer Duke Ellington used the refrain’s melody as the basis of the opening of his “Black and Tan Fantasy” (1927), in which a cornet and trombone play dolefully in parallel harmony. Can you hear the clopping donkey?

Lenten Art Videos from Loyola Press

Victoria Emily Jones2 Comments

Lent begins on Wednesday, February 22. I won’t be doing daily Lenten posts like I did last year, though I will be sharing seasonal content once or twice a week. If you want a set of new daily art-driven devotions that are freely accessible online, I’d encourage you to follow The Lent Project, run by the Center for Christianity, Culture, and the Arts at Biola University; each day features a scripture passage, a poem, a visual artwork, a piece of music, and a written reflection. I’d also direct you to my Lent Playlist (new additions at bottom) and Holy Week Playlist on Spotify.

Spitzweg, Carl_Ash Wednesday
Carl Spitzweg (German, 1808–1885), Ash Wednesday, 1860. Oil on canvas, 21 × 14 cm. Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, Stuttgart, Germany.

Another spiritual formation resource for Lent is the following series of Arts & Faith videos from Loyola Press, made in 2014–16. Each video features a three-minute commentary by Dr. Daniella Zsupan-Jerome on a historical artwork, chosen based on one of that day’s/week’s scripture readings from the Roman Catholic Mass Lectionary, which is currently in year A. Zsupan-Jerome is the director of ministry formation and field education at Saint John’s School of Theology and Seminary in Collegeville, Minnesota. Here she has crafted a “visual prayer experience” inspired by the Ignatian imagination. In his Spiritual Exercises, Saint Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits), encourages Christians to apply the senses of sight, hearing, smell, touch, and taste to our reading of and meditation on the New Testament, imagining ourselves as present in the Gospel scenes.

Go to the “Arts & Faith: Lent” homepage, or see below, where the link on each artwork title will take you to a new tab where the corresponding video commentary is hosted on the Loyola website. I’ve included sample embeds of a few of the videos below.  

Arts & Faith: Lent, Cycle A

> ASH WEDNESDAY: Pieter Brueghel the Elder, The Fight Between Carnival and Lent, 1559

> WEEK 1: Ivan Kramskoi, Christ in the Desert, 1872

> WEEK 2: Raphael, Transfiguration, 1518–20

> WEEK 3: St. Photini (The Woman at the Well) (Orthodox icon)

> WEEK 4: El Greco, Christ Healing the Blind, ca. 1567

> WEEK 5: János Vaszary, Resuscitation of Lazarus, 1912

> PALM SUNDAY: Giotto di Bondone, Entry into Jerusalem, ca. 1305

> HOLY THURSDAY: Bernhard Strigel, Christ Washing the Disciples’ Feet, ca. 1520

> GOOD FRIDAY: Titian, Christ and the Good Thief, ca. 1566

> HOLY SATURDAY: Triumph of the Cross, 12th century, apse mosaic from the Basilica of San Clemente, Rome

> EASTER SUNDAY: Piero della Francesca, The Resurrection of Jesus Christ, 1463

Arts & Faith: Lent, Cycle B

> ASH WEDNESDAY: Carl Spitzweg, Ash Wednesday, 1860

> WEEK 1: The Temptation of Christ, 12th century, Basilica of St. Mark, Venice

> WEEK 2: Francesco Zuccarelli, Landscape with the Transfiguration of Christ, 1788

> WEEK 3: Quentin Matsys, Jesus Chasing the Merchants from the Temple, 16th century

> WEEK 4: James Tissot, Interview between Jesus and Nicodemus, 1886–94

> WEEK 5: Vincent van Gogh, The Sower, 1888

> PALM SUNDAY: Caravaggio, The Denial of Saint Peter, 1610

> HOLY THURSDAY: Tintoretto, Christ Washing the Disciples’ Feet, 1548–49

> GOOD FRIDAY: Master of the Karlsruhe Passion, The Capture of Christ, ca. 1450

> HOLY SATURDAY: Jacopo di Cione, The Three Marys at the Sepulchre, detail from the San Pier Maggiore Altarpiece, 1370–71

> EASTER SUNDAY: Eugène Burnand, The Disciples Peter and John Running to the Sepulchre on the Morning of the Resurrection, 1898

Arts & Faith: Lent, Cycle C

> ASH WEDNESDAY: John Berney Crome, Great Gale at Yarmouth on Ash Wednesday, 1836

> WEEK 1: Limbourg Brothers, The Temptation of Christ, 1411–16

> WEEK 2: Lorenzo Lotto, The Transfiguration of Christ, ca. 1511

> WEEK 3: Alexey Pismenny, Parable of the Fruitless Fig Tree, 2008

> WEEK 4: Rembrandt van Rijn, The Return of the Prodigal Son, ca. 1668

> WEEK 5: Palma il Vecchio, Christ and the Adulteress, ca. 1525–28

> PALM SUNDAY: Wilhelm Morgner, Entry of Christ into Jerusalem, 1912

> HOLY THURSDAY: Christ Washing the Feet of His Disciples, ca. 1210, Basilica of St. Mark, Venice

> GOOD FRIDAY: Andrea Mantegna, The Dead Christ (Lamentation of Christ), 1475–78

> HOLY SATURDAY: The Women at the Tomb; The Descent into Limbo, Armenia, 1386

> EASTER SUNDAY: Redemption Window (detail), Corona Chapel, Canterbury Cathedral, ca. 1200–1207

Palm Sunday: Sannanina (Hosanna)

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Now when they drew near to Jerusalem, to Bethphage and Bethany, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples and said to them, “Go into the village in front of you, and immediately as you enter it you will find a colt tied, on which no one has ever sat. Untie it and bring it. If anyone says to you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ say, ‘The Lord has need of it and will send it back here immediately.’” And they went away and found a colt tied at a door outside in the street, and they untied it. And some of those standing there said to them, “What are you doing, untying the colt?” And they told them what Jesus had said, and they let them go. And they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it, and he sat on it. And many spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut from the fields. And those who went before and those who followed were shouting, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David! Hosanna in the highest!”

—Mark 11:1–10

LOOK: Betty LaDuke (American, 1933–), Guatemala: Procession, 1978. Acrylic on canvas, 72 × 68 in.

LaDuke, Betty_Guatemala-Procession

In Imaging the Word, vol. 3, the artist describes the inspiration behind this painting:

Before Christmas, at the Mayan village of Chichicastenango in Guatemala, statues of Christ, the Virgin Mary, and the saints are . . . carried aloft in an annual procession. In my painting Guatemala: Procession, Christ appears on a donkey surrounded by the masks worn by the Mayans who dance to honor and celebrate their indigenous roots. They also dance a re-enactment of the brutal Spanish invasion, with satirical masks representing conquistadores. Inside the church many candles are lit and prayers are offered. (181)

So it seems LaDuke has imagined Christ entering this Maya community of Christian celebrants who remember biblical history alongside their history as a people. This isn’t a Palm Sunday image per se, since it visualizes a procession that occurs toward the beginning of the liturgical year, but Jesus’s presence in the center on donkeyback, in a gateway backlit with glorious yellow, flanked by crowds and with angels overhead, evokes his triumphal entry into Jerusalem five days before his death.

LISTEN: “Sanna, Sannanina,” traditional South African

“Sannanina” is a Xhosa derivate of the Greek word “Hosanna,” which is itself a transliteration of a Hebrew phrase that means “Save us, please!” (For more on the word “hosanna” and how its meaning shifted from a cry for help to a shout of exultation—“Salvation!”—read here.) In the first video below, the song is performed by the Africa University Choir. The second video is a demo produced by MennoMedia in preparation for the publication of the Mennonite hymnal Voices Together in 2020.

For more songs for Holy Week, see the Art & Theology Holy Week Playlist.

Ride On, Ride On (Artful Devotion)

Victoria Emily Jones2 Comments

Sahi, Jyoti_Entry into Jerusalem
Jyoti Sahi (Indian, 1944–), Entry into Jerusalem, 2012. Oil and acrylic on canvas. Photo courtesy of the artist.

. . . Most of the crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. And the crowds that went before him and that followed him were shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!” And when he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred up, saying, “Who is this?” And the crowds said, “This is the prophet Jesus, from Nazareth of Galilee.”

—Matthew 21:8–11

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SONG: “Ride On, Ride On in Majesty!” | Words by Henry H. Milman, 1827 | Music by John Hatfield, 2017

Can’t view the embedded podcast player? Access the episode at https://hymnistry.simplecast.com/episodes/ride-on-ride-on-in-majesty-fae373c8. There you can also find a chord chart.

Ride on, ride on in majesty!
Hark! all the tribes hosanna cry;
O Savior meek, pursue thy road
with palms and scattered garments strowed.

Ride on, ride on in majesty!
In lowly pomp ride on to die:
O Christ, thy triumphs now begin
o’er captive death and conquered sin.

Ride on, ride on in majesty!
The angel armies of the sky
look down with sad and wond’ring eyes
to see th’approaching sacrifice.

Ride on, ride on in majesty!
Thy last and fiercest strife is nigh;
the Father on his sapphire throne
expects his own anointed Son.

Ride on, ride on in majesty!
In lowly pomp ride on to die;
bow thy meek head to mortal pain,
then take, O Christ, thy pow’r and reign.

This year’s Palm Sunday music selection comes from Hymnistry, an excellent podcast that ran from 2015 to 2018. I’ve always liked Henry H. Milman’s hymn text “Ride On, Ride On in Majesty!,” but not the traditional tunes it’s typically paired with. So I was thrilled to hear this contemporary setting by John Hatfield. Hatfield’s introduction to the hymn starts at 5:51. He discusses the cognitive dissonance of Palm Sunday, a celebratory occasion with somber undertones, because we’re really cheering Jesus on to his death. He’s hailed as king, Hatfield says, and “his first act in office is to give himself up for us.” Milman’s text captures this paradox of victory through a cross, and Hatfield seeks to do so as well in his retuning, maintaining a happy energy throughout but sneaking in a minor chord. The actual hymn starts at 10:32.

In the first half of the episode, the Rev. Jacob Paul Breeze, pastor of Holy Family in downtown Houston, gives some illuminating historical background. He says that when Jesus entered Jerusalem during Passover, the Israelites took out the Hanukkah decorations (palm branches) instead! Why were they getting their holidays mixed up? Well, they weren’t. Waving palm branches, which were a symbol of prosperity and triumph in Judaism, is how they celebrated their ancestor Judah Maccabee’s cleansing of the temple in the second century BCE. (He recaptured Jerusalem from the Syrian Greeks and restored Jewish temple worship, which gave way to the first Hanukkah, really a belated celebration of the fall festival of Sukkot; see 2 Maccabees 10:1–8, cf. 1 Maccabees 4:54–60.) The Israelites’ waving of date palms as Jesus processed into their most holy city was their way of affirming him as their chosen one, Breeze says, to lead a revolt against the Romans and secure their freedom.

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I love the colorful flurry of excitement in Jyoti Sahi’s painting Entry into Jerusalem, where crowds gather in effusive praise of their new liberator. Birds and angels wing overhead, while green palm branches spill forth from the bottom right to carpet Jesus’s path.

Jyoti told me he started this painting after visiting Jerusalem for an interfaith meeting—his first trip to the Holy Land—where he presented a paper on art and meditation. He was fascinated by the surrounding landscape. The theme of Christ entering Jerusalem is related to the idea of Christ entering the human heart, he says.

The painting was acquired in 2018 by a visiting Italian monk for a Christian chapel in Sicily.

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Palm Sunday–related posts from the Art & Theology archives:

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This is the first in a series of eight Artful Devotions I’ve planned—one for each day of Holy Week and the Paschal Triduum. I’m posting this one several days ahead because it’s more substantial than the others; the rest I will endeavor to post in the early morning of the given day, from next Monday through Sunday (Easter!). Most of the world will be spending Holy Week at home this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Paul Neeley of Global Christian Worship has compiled a great list of resources to help individuals and families honor these days while in quarantine: https://globalworship.tumblr.com/post/613778966717841408/holy-week-at-home. I’m sure there are many more ideas and materials out there as well.

Also for Holy Week, I’d like to remind you of a digital gallery of contemporary global art I curated and commented on for the International Mission Board in 2017, with selections spanning six continents: https://www.imb.org/2017/04/07/journey-cross-artists-visualize-christs-passion-part-1/; https://www.imb.org/2017/04/12/journey-cross-artists-visualize-christs-passion-part-2/.

Holy Week art at IMB.org

This post belongs to the weekly series Artful Devotion. If you can’t view the music player in your email or RSS reader, try opening the post in your browser.

To view all the Revised Common Lectionary scripture readings for Palm Sunday, cycle A, click here.

He Went On Ahead (Artful Devotion)

Victoria Emily Jones2 Comments

Jesus Entering Jerusalem by Nathan Simpson
Nathan Simpson (Australian, 1973–), Jesus Entering Jerusalem, 1999. Oil on canvas.

And when he had said these things, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem . . .

—Luke 19:28

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SONG: “My Lord” by Hiram Ring, on Home (2013)

 

This Sunday marks the start of Passion Week, with Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a donkey, where he is greeted by palm branches and Hosannas. By Thursday, though, these shouts of praise will devolve into “Is it I?,” “I do not know him,” and “Crucify him!”

In a series of simple verses, Hiram Ring’s blues-inflected song “My Lord” moves from Jesus’s triumphal entry to his agony in the garden (where he drinks heavily the bitter draft of suffering) to his crucifixion. The final two verses shift then to his resurrection and his exaltation in heaven.

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Agony in the Garden by Nathan Simpson
Nathan Simpson (Australian, 1973–), Agony in the Garden, 1999. Oil on canvas.

Resurrection by Nathan Simpson
Nathan Simpson (Australian, 1973–), Large Resurrection, 1999. Oil on canvas.

I’m compelled by the Gospel narrative paintings of contemporary Australian artist Nathan Simpson. These are a few I saved from his website a while ago before it went under construction. In Simpson’s Agony in the Garden, Christ’s anguish is palpable. The image combines the Gethsemane narrative with all the suffering that lies ahead, culminating in death. A row of olive trees forms the horizontal beam of a cross, while a rooster (alluding to Peter’s betrayal) forms the vertical; Christ’s head, with swollen eyes and gaping mouth (“My God, my God . . .”), is the point of intersection.

Simpson’s Resurrection painting, by contrast, shows a Christ who’s victorious over death, his face serene. The artist plays with the popular “tree of life” motif, fusing Christ’s body into this flowering, bird-filled plant. An arborescent Christ! See how the nail wound in his left foot is also the tree’s hollow.

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In their latest blog post, SALT Project suggests a simple at-home Holy Week ritual for families that I really like: a Tenebrae Wreath (tenebrae means “shadows”).

Imagine . . . a sort of Advent Wreath in reverse: four candles in a circle with a Paschal candle in the middle, extinguished one by one. Sunday night: beginning with only the Paschal candle lit, read Luke’s story of Palm Sunday, and then light all four candles in joy, hope, and thanksgiving. Thursday night: read Luke’s story of the Last Supper, and extinguish one candle; then read Luke’s story of Gethsemane, and extinguish a second. Friday night: read Luke’s story of Peter’s denials and desertion, and extinguish a third candle; then read Luke’s story of Jesus’ suffering, and extinguish the fourth; and then finally, read Luke’s story of Jesus’ death, and extinguish the Paschal candle. Saturday, the wreath remains unlit and bare, perhaps shrouded with cloth. And Sunday morning, the shroud is gone and all candles are lit, with a few more candles added—along with some flowers and Easter sweets! Read Luke’s story of the empty tomb, and sing your favorite Easter hymn (or two).

This post belongs to the weekly series Artful Devotion. If you can’t view the music player in your email or RSS reader, try opening the post in your browser.

To view all the Revised Common Lectionary scripture readings for Palm Sunday and the Liturgy of the Passion, cycle C, click here and here.

Album Review: Last Days by the Brothers of Abriem Harp

Victoria Emily Jones5 Comments

Released in 2015, the album Last Days by the Brothers of Abriem Harp features twelve original indie-folk songs for Holy Week that tell the story of Christ’s passion, from the thundering voice of the Father affirming the Son but also presaging judgment, to the glorification of Christ in the resurrection. One of its major draws is its quiet, understated conveyance of the week’s drama through several different voices: Jesus, of course, but also Mary, Peter, Judas, and other unnamed disciples who reflect on the events they witness, especially in light of their histories with Christ.

Last Days album cover

Approaching Jesus’s last days primarily through the lens of story—plot, character, mood, etc.—rather than the lens of doctrine makes the listening experience more immersive. That’s not to say theology is absent from the album; it’s very much there. But it is not heavy-handed or abstruse, and neither is it reduced to clichés.

The songs are written and sung by Joe Kurtz (pseudonym: Abriem Harp) and Josh Compton (Josh Harp), with Matt Kurtz (Matthew Harp) on percussion and John Finley (Hezekiah Harp) playing many of the other instruments. On the band’s Facebook page they describe themselves as “Gospel-shoutin’ melody makers from the Rust Belt,” and among their musical influences are field recordings, the Sacred Harp tradition, and mountain music.

In the video below, the Brothers have set the entire album to altered footage from Vie et Passion du Christ (Life and Passion of the Christ), a forty-four-minute silent film released in France in 1903. The album is also available for streaming and purchase at https://harpfamilyrecordings.bandcamp.com/album/last-days.

Here’s a rundown of the songs.

1. “Glorify”

A voice arose, a voice arose
A voice arose, a voice
It sounded like thunder, pounded like thunder (×4)

It said, “I’ve glorified it, and again I’ll glorify it”
Yeah, “I’ve glorified it, and again I’ll glorify it” (×3)

This is an unconventional starting point for the passion narrative, which typically begins with Christ’s entry into Jerusalem. Instead, the Brothers have chosen a lesser-known episode from John’s Gospel, which occurs just after the triumphal entry—and what a beautiful passage to highlight. (I actually was not familiar with the references in the song and had to look them up—a great example of how the arts can stimulate renewed engagement with the Bible!)

“The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. . . .

“Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But for this purpose I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.”

Then a voice came from heaven: “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” The crowd that stood there and heard it said that it had thundered. Others said, “An angel has spoken to him.”

Jesus answered, “This voice has come for your sake, not mine. Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” He said this to show by what kind of death he was going to die.

—John 12:23–24, 27–33

“It’s time.” That’s essentially what Jesus is saying. And then in the middle of this discourse with the disciples, Jesus gets real with the Father. “I’m scared! But what can I do? This is my destiny; I can’t avoid it.” And then, his words of acceptance, of surrender: “Father, glorify your name.” It’s unclear whether this prayer was audible to the disciples or was expressed merely internally. Whatever the case, the Father’s response was heard by all—though some attributed it to natural phenomena, or to an angel.

As this passage clarifies, the “it” in the song is the Father’s name: God says that he has glorified it in the past, and he will glorify it again, when Christ is lifted up for the salvation of the world.

John uses the words glory and glorified a lot in his Gospel, especially in relation to Christ’s passion. In John 13:31, after the Last Supper, where Jesus has just identified Judas as his future betrayer, Jesus says, “Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him.” Later that night, in Gethsemane, Jesus prays, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you. . . . I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed” (John 17:1, 4–5).

The opening song on Last Days, therefore, though just three allusive lines, repeated, is packed with meaning, much of it concentrated in that dense word glorify, a word that orients the whole album. Much like the opening sequence of a movie sets the movie’s tone and hints at what you’re in for, so do opening songs on albums, and this one is somewhat portentous, leaving us wondering, “How will God’s name be glorified?”; it also gives the Father a speaking role and thus situates him as a main character in the story.   Continue reading “Album Review: Last Days by the Brothers of Abriem Harp” →

Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M. by Simon and Garfunkel (album review)

Victoria Emily Jones5 Comments

For Christmas 1999 my parents bought me, a sixth grader at the time, the new Best of Simon and Garfunkel album released by Columbia. I was already familiar with about half the songs, which played frequently on Oldies 100.7, the station to which my family’s radios were always tuned. (Even so, who hasn’t heard “Mrs. Robinson” and “Bridge Over Troubled Water”?) The other half I taught myself through repeated listening on my boombox, following along with the lyrics printed in the CD insert. I’m grateful to my parents for educating my musical tastes beyond Backstreet Boys and Britney Spears.

Simon and Garfunkel
Simon and Garfunkel, 5th Avenue and 53rd Street subway station, New York City, 1964. Photo: Henry Parker (cover shoot for Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M.).

It wasn’t until after college that I ventured into the duo’s lesser-known discography. That’s when I discovered their debut album, Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M. “Exciting new sounds in the folk tradition,” the cover boasts. Released October 18, 1964, to lukewarm reviews, it was a commercial failure, selling only one thousand copies in the first eight months. Even today critics say it pales in comparison to their subsequent work. But I actually love this album—it’s one of my favorites not only of theirs but of any artist. I was pleasantly surprised to find it chock-full of biblical references, many of them explicit.

Its seven covers include an upbeat gospel song, a Negro spiritual, a Renaissance canticle (adapted), a visionary antiwar song, an atom-bomb lament, a traditional Scottish ballad, and the Dylan classic “The Times They Are a-Changin’.” The five originals include a fable about loving the immigrant, an elegy for a civil rights martyr, a farewell song (in the voice of a criminal), and two poetic expressions of urban loneliness.

1. You Can Tell the World. [Listen] A joyous blast of praise, this traditional black gospel song begins,

Well, you can tell the world about this
You can tell the nation about that
Tell ’em what the master has done
Tell ’em that the gospel has come
Tell ’em that the victory’s been won
He brought joy, joy, joy, joy, joy, joy
Into my heart

It then goes on to extol Jesus’s preaching and testify to the personal revelation God gives.

As is often the case with traditional songs, the tune and lyrics have been adapted over time. Other versions have been recorded under names like “He Brought Joy to My Soul” (Ethel Waters, 1926); “I Can Tell the World About This” (Morris Brown Quartet, 1940); “Joy, Joy to My Soul” (The Soul Stirrers, feat. Sam Cooke, 1951); “Tell the World” (The Tarriers, 1960); and so on. In 1961 Bob Gibson recorded an arrangement he and Hamilton Camp had written, which is what Simon and Garfunkel credit in their liner notes. This was my first time hearing this song that has apparently been making the rounds for decades, and I enjoyed listening to what other artists have done with it. To view a partial list of recordings, click here. (And be sure to check out the choral arrangement by Alice Parker, on the 2010 album Listen, Lord.)

2. Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream. [Listen] In this song, written by Ed McCurdy in 1950, the speaker dreams about a treaty being signed by all nations to put an end to war. As the signers hold hands and pray together, the people toss their guns, swords, and uniforms into trash heaps, for they have been rendered obsolete. A call for world peace, “Last Night” has been recorded in seventy-six languages, and the Peace Corps adopted it as their official theme song in 1980. It’s a little too singsongy for my tastes, but I support the dream 100 percent!

3. Bleecker Street. [Listen] The first original song on the album, “Bleecker Street,” typifies the melodic grace and themes (e.g., alienation, discontent) that Paul would come to be known and praised for. Its title is the name of one of the famous avenues of Greenwich Village, a haven for artists of all types and a major hub of 1960s countercultures. But Paul doesn’t characterize it as a place of salvation. Quite the opposite: he says, “It’s a long road to Canaan / On Bleecker Street.”

It sounds to me like Paul (assuming he’s the speaker here) is voicing his disillusionment and trying to come to grips with humanity’s failings. For all the lofty ideals born and preached there, the Village is no paradise. People were coming there looking to receive and help effect freedom, enlightenment, beauty, and change, but loneliness and suffering persists. Fog covers Bleecker “like a shroud,” blanketing homeless men asleep in alleys and “hid[ing] the shepherd from the sheep.” (Most residents were so self-involved, they couldn’t see God.) There’s a spiritual emptiness, and a loss of real human connection (“I saw a shadow touch a shadow’s hand”).

The poets write, and “holy, holy is their sacrament” (a reference, perhaps, to Allen Ginsberg). But their rhymes are “crooked” (dishonest?), and they sell them for thirty dollars’ rent, a reference to Judas’s betrayal of Jesus.

And yet on the other side of this moral desert, “a church bell softly chime[s],” beckoning seekers to a higher and truer hope, to a promise that will not fail. Its “melody sustain[s]” the human spirit like nothing else can.

4. Sparrow. [Listen] This sung fable, written by Paul Simon, tells the story of a little sparrow “who’s traveled far and cries for rest.” She seeks love but is rebuffed at every turn. The oak tree denies her shelter in his branches, not wanting to lend his strength to such an unworthy creature; for fear of derision from her peers, the beautiful swan declines to speak a kindly word; and the self-interested wheat refuses the sparrow food, preferring to keep all his resources to himself: “I would if I could but I cannot I know. / I need all my grain to prosper and grow.”   Continue reading “Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M. by Simon and Garfunkel (album review)” →

Don’t let the rocks cry out

Victoria Emily Jones3 Comments

When Jesus rode into Jerusalem the week of his death—a day that the church commemorates each year as Palm Sunday—he entered to a throng of people shouting “Hosanna!” (“Hooray for salvation!”) and carpeting his path with their cloaks and with palm branches. The Pharisees, still not seeing Jesus for who he was, told him to rebuke the crowds for their blasphemy. To give high praise to anyone other than God, they insisted, is a grievous sin. That’s true enough, but the disciples’ praises were not misplaced. Jesus defends their hosannas and their postures of worship, retorting that “if these [my disciples] were silent, the very stones would cry out” (Luke 19:40). This is one of several times throughout his ministry in which he equates himself with God.

Even the Stones Will Cry Out
Roberta Karstetter (American, 1953–), Even the Stones Will Cry Out, 2010. Assemblage.

The Westbound Rangers, a bluegrass band from Nashville, has a song inspired by this episode: “Rocks Cry Out,” from their 2013 album Gone for Way Too Long. It was written by Graham Sherrill, an old high school friend of mine, who also does vocals and banjo for it. Fellow bandmates—Mike Walker on mandolin, Read Davis on guitar, and Wes Burkhart on bass—helped write the instrumental bridge. I’ve embedded the song here with the band’s permission.   Continue reading “Don’t let the rocks cry out” →

“The Burden” by Philip Rosenbaum

Victoria Emily Jones1 Comment

Triumphal Entry by Gustave Dore
Gustave Doré (French, 1832–1883), The Entry of Christ into Jerusalem, 1876. Oil on canvas, 38-1/4 × 51 in.

Unaccustomed to her burden, she knows not
That never beast bore such a Man as this,
Who meekly rides to His appointed lot,
A crown of thorns and a betrayer’s kiss.
And never man will carry such a weight
As He bears now in this, His day of power,
Ascending toward a strait and narrow gate,
His agonizing last and finest hour.
She bravely struggles on, despite her fear
Of cheering men, whom He as gravely views
As an admiral watching distant storms draw near
To lash bright waves to dark and deadly hues;
He knows the death decreed in ancient psalms,
The Tree that looms beyond these scattered palms.

“The Burden” © 2004 by Philip Rosenbaum. Reprinted with permission. Published privately as one of twenty-four poems in the volume Holy Week Sonnets. To purchase a copy of the book, contact the author through his website, ChristianPoet.org. (Take it from me: both the physical book and its content are of high quality. It’s a lovely, professionally designed and printed hardcover edition with textured paper and a ribbon marker and a foreword by Joni Eareckson Tada, containing skillfully written poems from various points along the Christ narrative, and various perspectives. The latter half contains correlative scripture passages.)