Christmas Musicals for Church
Issue link: https://read.jwpepper.com/i/605292
performance notes This work is intended for Tenebrae. The historical Tenebrae service revolves around the theme of darkness (tenebrae means "darkness") and the lengthening shadows of suffering from Maundy Thursday to Good Friday. It employs the incremental extinguishing of candles to visually represent the fading life of Christ. Although we have created this service specifically for Good Friday, you may also use it on Passion Sunday or Maundy Thursday. You will need two speakers. The first tells the Gospel narrative of the Passion story. The second speaker, reading from off-stage, represents the first-person viewpoint of Christ, gathered from various Messianic laments in the Old Testament that foreshadow the events of the Passion. If your church uses banners, you might wish to hang a large solid black banner in the sanctuary, completely devoid of symbols, words or colors. Likewise, if you use paraments, use the traditional deep purple Lenten ones (unless you have already stripped the church in a separate, preced- ing service.) Begin the service in a dimly lit sanctuary, with five medium candles and a larger Christ candle, all lit, in full view of the worshippers. At the close of each song, extinguish one of the five medium candles, representing the descent of another shadow. During the final verse of "Come, Ye Disconsolate," recess the Christ candle out of the sanctuary, signifying the death of Christ. (Most churches leave the Christ candle lit and remove it until Easter Sunday, but if your church is not opposed to it, you may extinguish this candle as well.) At this point, the sanctuary lights should be dimmed to their lowest setting. To intensify the visual element of this service, a length of black cloth (per- haps even the banner mentioned above), may be folded to represent a shroud being carried to the tomb, and recessed out of the auditorium in silence after the final anthem, "Lamentation for the Lamb." 3 LAMENTATIONS OF THE LAMB – SATB For Preview Only