Tears, Comfort, and Old Hymns

This morning, our church choir shared some of the great hymns of the faith with our church in a cantata style celebration of music.

Instead of our traditional Easter cantata, we picked some of our favorite hymns, our fearless leader researched their stories, and we presented a morning of lessons, messages and songs.

And tears were abundant.

There was a moment at some point in the process where I had noticed that we hadn’t picked a lot of “cheery” songs.  Typically, our Easter Cantata is full of life and energy and joy and pep.  But this wasn’t, after all, an Easter cantata.  So I let it go.  God knew what was in the works.

Each hymn, each song we shared, celebrated the promises of life after death in their own way.  Each was filled with hope, even if they were born out of tragedy.  Each was a reminder of the power of music to sustain our faith and keep us going even in the hardest moments along the way.

We didn’t need trumpets and fanfares and complicated melodies or driving beats.  We simply sang the faith that has formed us and it filled our souls.

Thanks be to God.