Music gives solemnity, beauty, joy, and enthusiasm to the worship of the people.  It sets the appropriate mood for a particular season and celebration.  At no time of the year is this more apparent than now, as we approach the ending of Lent and move into the Easter season.  Music has been somber, and will become even more so as we enter Holy Week, mourning the approaching crucifixion.   We have a brief moment of joy and hope at the beginning of Palm Sunday, singing a triumphal entrance song--All Glory, Laud, and Honor.  That moment quickly turns sad and sorrowful with the reading of the Passion gospel, and the music becomes sad and sorrowful.  Holy Week is both beautiful and hard to bear, but I think the full joy and meaning of Easter cannot be understood and emotionally experienced unless you go through the Holy Week services.   The organ is muted.  Even the stops of the organ are sorrowful.  
You have heard the expression, "pull out all the stops".  That's what we do on Easter Sunday.  Literally, I pull organ stops that have not been used in Lent--the joyful ones, the mixtures and the trumpet.  If you have never looked closely at the organ, I invite you to do so.  The sounds that come out of the organ are determined by which stops (knobs) are pulled.  We sing hymns that are so very familiar and joyful, hymns from our childhood.   And we pull out all the stops!!    Don't forget to bring a bell to ring every time we sing an alleluia--and if you don't have a bell, there will be extras at church.  Come, make a joyful noise!!

Lynn Gardner, Organist/Choirmaster