The body responds to music, in a number of ways. It responds physically (dance); it responds visually (imagination); and it responds emotionally (heart). We’ve all been there. When the music starts pumping, and you can’t help but get up and dance, your body is calling you to get up and move! Sometimes we simply can’t help but bee-bop along when the music gets cranked up. It’s almost as if you are “being danced,” especially if the party has started. And then there’s the visual. Music can create images. Composers who are good at this, often write film scores, or compose musicals.

Then there’s another kind of music, which we often tend to laugh off, but secretly use when we want to express emotion. Haven’t you ever turned on your favorite love ballad, and cried into your pillow? If you haven’t done that, then you really ought to give that a try – it’ll do you some good!  Our offertory anthem, Gilbert Martin’s When I Survey the Wondrous Cross, is a great example of music which tugs at the emotional strings of your heart. For some reason, many stuffy church musicians poke fun at the numerous key changes, and loud, high chords at the end of this anthem. They dismiss this kind of music as being theatrical, over-the-top, trite, and inappropriate for a stiff-lipped, Episcopal Church. But at what cost does one pay for not having a chance to express emotions?  I think that comes with a huge cost, when we don’t allow the body to process and express emotion, particularly on such a solemn liturgy as Palm Sunday.

I remember as a child playing this hymn for my grandmother, who would sit right next to her Yamaha, upright piano (which now is in my house), and she would just sing and weep. She could hardly make it through one verse of The Old Rugged Cross before she’d be in a puddle, but she always told me to keep going – to keep playing. There were so many of those hymns that would utterly move her to tears, but as an adult, I now understand why. It’s because she had to. We all have to, and Palm Sunday is a perfect time to express the pain and sorrow of the wounds we cause to ourselves and to others. Pay particular attention to the verse that recalls, “his head, his hands, his feet, sorrow and love flow mingled down.” The music absolutely cries out in pain, and it’s okay if you do too. (Just don’t start sobbing, or you’ll draw attention to yourself!)

Humans are energy, emotion, and spirit. We are created beings who are meant to experience the entire gamut of emotion, the miracle of creativity, and the awe and wonder of love. Jesus certainly knew this, and suffered immense pain for the sake of our own understanding of who we really are. Allow sorrow to work through you, when it needs to. But allow it to create space for something greater when the weeping is over. When you arrive at the great “Amen,” at the end of this anthem, remember that the sorrow and pain of challenge is never permanent. It is always closely followed by hope, which will eventually prompt you to dance, with joy and love, once again. Soli deo gloria!