Annemieke McLane will be back this week leading the choir and providing some gorgeous, comforting and uplifting music.  See the three YouTube videos below for a sampling of what we will hear.  You are invited to sing with the choir any Sunday–just show up at 9:00 AM, no prior experience or religious affiliation necessary!

This Second Sunday in Lent we will wrestle with some of Jesus’ most important teachings, ranging from the subtle to the shocking.  We will hear his challenge to set our minds not on human things, but on divine things.  What does that mean, practically?  We will hear him say that those who try to save their life will lose it and those who lose their life for his sake will save it.  What does that mean in our daily lives?  We will hear him say that those who believe in him will do even greater works than he did.  How can that be, what can that mean for us in our life right now?

We will see how these are extremely hopeful teachings for this troubled time in our nation and world—how they can comfort and lift us and make us a source of comfort and uplift to others.

We will read from Jeremiah 29 and Psalm 22, and hear two gospel passages, Mark 8:31-36 and John 14:1-6, 10-12.  We will sing the beloved Thomas Dorsey gospel hymn, “Precious Lord, Take My Hand,” and the equally beloved “Spirit of God, Descend Upon My Heart.”  We will sing a new hymn to the tune of “Abide With Me.”

The choir will sing an Introit from J. S. Bach’s St. John Passion (see the YouTube below) and an Anthem arranged by Peter and Mary Alice Amidon from southern Vermont.  It is a song written by Faya Ora Rose Touré, of Selma Alabama, who is a civil rights activist, lawyer, and educator, and the first African American woman judge in Alabama.  “I’m Gonna Lift My Sister Up” is as uplifting as a song can be. (See the YouTube below.)

Annemieke will play an amazing Prelude by J.S Bach (again, see the YouTube below) and the beautiful Pavana (or Pavane) by William Byrd.  The Postlude will be the first in a series during Lent taken from the Seven Last Words composed by Haydn, “Father Forgive Them.”

Here is the beautiful Introit from Bach’s St. John Passion that the choir will be singing.  (The Handel Society will be performing the full Passion in May.)

Here is the piece the choir will sing as an Anthem.  It is being performed at a “Cabaret Night” by a UU church choir, and the video starts late and ends early, but you will get the feel for the spirit of it, and you’ll be humming it for a while, too!

Here is Annemieke’s Bach Prelude: