Prepare the way, O people, revised

Prepare the way, O people! Your Christ is drawing near!

Cry out to this great city, so all can see and hear!

A borrowed colt he's riding, God's holy reign betiding.

Hosanna in the highest! Hosanna in the highest!

 

Spread out your coats, O people! Make clear your Teacher's way!

Make smooth the road before him on this great joyous day!

Sing out and shout with gladness! This is no time for sadness!

Hosanna in the highest! Hosanna in the highest!

 

Blessed is the one, O people, the one who comes to save;

The one who comes in God's name, who saves us from the grave!

Here on this colt proceeding, even now for us he's pleading;

Hosanna in the highest! Hosanna in the highest!

 

 

TEXT: Charles Spence Freeman, March 2024, after Mark 11:1-11.

MUSIC: Tune BEREDEN VÄG FÖR HERRAN, Then Swenska Psalmboken, 1697; arr. American Lutheran Hymnal, 1930.

 

 

This might be a bad habit, but I have a tendency to find a hymn suited to a particular season or occasion and create a hymn in parallel to it but tied to a different season or occasion. Here the original, a good lively Advent hymn, provides the model for a Palm Sunday text, another occasion when "preparing the way" was the call of the day. Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems like sometimes it might be a good thing to make connections across the different seasons of the liturgical year. This was written last year for the reading from Mark's gospel; changing two words made it suitable for this year's Luke reading. 

Prepare the way, O people

Prepare the way, O people! Your Christ is drawing near!

Cry out to this great city, so all can see and hear!

A borrowed colt he's riding, God's holy reign betiding.

Hosanna in the highest! Hosanna in the highest!

 

Spread out your coats, O people! Make clear your Teacher's way!

Make smooth the road with branches on this great joyous day!

Sing out and shout with gladness! This is no time for sadness!

Hosanna in the highest! Hosanna in the highest!

 

Blessed is the one, O people, the one who comes to save;

The one who comes in God's name, who saves us from the grave!

Here on this colt proceeding, even now for us he's pleading;

Hosanna in the highest! Hosanna in the highest!

 

 

TEXT: Charles Spence Freeman, March 2024, after Mark 11:1-11.

MUSIC: Tune BEREDEN VÄG FÖR HERRAN, Then Swenska Psalmboken, 1697; arr. American Lutheran Hymnal, 1930.

 

 

This might be a bad habit, but I have a tendency to find a hymn suited to a particular season or occasion and create a hymn in parallel to it but tied to a different season or occasion. Here the original, a good lively Advent hymn, provides the model for a Palm Sunday text, another occasion when "preparing the way" was the call of the day. Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems like sometimes it might be a good thing to make connections across the different seasons of the liturgical year. (While the Mark account is used as the starting point fot this text, it might be non-specific enough to be sung on any Palm Sunday.

Still cloaks and branches scattered

Still cloaks and branches scattered on the ground,

Donkey and colt now safely taken home. 

No more "hosannas" from the people sound;

Wondering and watching where will Jesus roam.

 

Jesus then turns to face the Temple walls;

Heart of the faith, but what there does he see?

"This house of prayer you make a den of thieves!"

Buyers and sellers forced in shock to flee.

 

Then came the ones who sought again to walk,

And those who yearned for sight for blinded eyes; 

Healing and saving, Jesus welcomes all! 

Once more "hosannas" from the children rise. 

 

 

TEXT: Charles Spence Freeman, April 2023.

MUSIC: Suggested tune TOULON, Genevan Psalter, 1531; adapt. from GENEVAN 124.

 

 

A text that takes the long view of what we call Palm Sunday, as recorded in Matthew 21, where the action doesn't stop with the triumphal entry.