FolkBlog

I’ve been listening to Iona a lot for Holy Week. Part of the reason is that I pulled out my Iona CDs for St. Patrick’s Day, which was just last week, and part of it is the purely stunning 14+ minute live version of “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross” (to what most in America would consider the alternate tune, the tune of “The Water is Wide”) from their Heaven’s Bright Sun CD.

It starts with a plaintive guitar solo over a bed of swirling keyboards, which fade out before Joanne Hogg’s vocals. After she sings the first verse, the percussion kicks in. The third verse, “See from his hands, his side, his feet, sorrow and love come mingled down…” Hogg sings accompanied solely by stark, staccato single drum beats, reminiscent of the soldiers driving the nails into Jesus’ hands and feet. After the fourth verse finishes: “Were the whole realm of nature mine, that were a present far too small. Love so amazing, so divine demands my soul, my life, my all” the band launches into 5 minutes of instrumental coda, which to me reflects the nature of giving one’s all in response to the cross, then fading out into some ethereal keyboards.

The church I attend is currently between buildings. We sold our previous building (a process fraught with much controversy) and are currently in the process of getting the approvals to begin building in a new location, with the new building to be complete by the end of the year if all goes well. We were not able to coordinate a joint Maundy Thursday with another local church, and not having a building of our own in which to meet, I found myself free to attend another local church for services on Maundy Thursday.

I chose to attend at First Community Church in Marble Cliff, since I have many friends who attend there and know many in the choir from singing with them in the Symphony Chorus. I figured that if nothing else, the music would be outstanding. I was not disappointed. The service was at their main campus, a beautiful stone church with a sanctuary in the “old school” cross shape. It began with the choir processing with candles in a darkened sanctuary to a cappella chant and circling the congregation. It gave me chills. It’s rare that one can find a choir that can sing in unison so well. Anyway, the service turned out to be combination celebration of Maundy Thursday and tenebrae service, which I was not expecting. The symbolism of the tenebrae service, usually held on Good Friday, is powerful. In a typical tenebrae services, as the passion story is told, candles are extinguished one by one until the sanctuary is left in darkness, symbolizing the death of Christ on the cross for our sins and His descent into hell. I liked that the acolytes physically walked the Christ candle out of the sanctuary, leaving the sanctuary in darkness.

Typically, this is where a tenebrae service will end, and the congregation files out in silence, meditating on the absence of Christ and awaiting His return fom the dead on Easter. I was surprised when, after a couple minutes in darkness, the lit Christ candle was processed back into the sanctuary. It was dramatic, symbolic and beautiful, as the one light entered the darkened sanctuary, but I couldn’t help feeling it was theologically wrong. I think we should have left the sanctuary feeling the darkness of Christ’s absence and remembering the hopelessness and despair of the shepherdless disciples and the sorrow of a world without the light of Christ, which strikes me as the point of re-enacting those events for Holy Week.

Anyway, other than this one theological quibble I found the service extremely moving and it really did help me into the Holy Week frame of mind.