Musical Meditations for Holy Week & Easter
In the Christian tradition, Lent is the season that helps prepare us for the celebration of Easter. The season commemorates the 40 days Jesus spent fasting in the desert, according to the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, before beginning his public ministry.
As our Lenten journey draws to a close during Holy Week, which begins on Palm Sunday, we remember Jesus' death on a cross for us. Then on Easter Sunday - the day of resurrection, we celebrate the resurrection, that Jesus is alive.
In preparation of observing the most joyous season of the Christian year, we welcome and invite you to join our observances of Holy Week and celebration of Easter with this playlist of sacred music, which includes online musical meditations for the days of Holy Week and Easter Sunday.
Meditative Hymns for Holy Week
Listen to meditative music for Holy Week, including Maundy Thursday and Good Friday.
What Wondrous Love Is This?
Sung by Brooke, a soprano at Mars Hill United Methodist Church
When I Survey The Wondrous Cross
Featuring a solo by Alex Ngamhuy, a student at Mars Hill University
Ah, Holy Jesus
A piano instrumental performed by Patty Higgins
Meditative Hymns for Easter & Eastertide (Hymns for the Easter Season)
Listen to meditative music for Easter Sunday and Easter octave.
This Easter Celebration
A hymn written by Rev. Carolyn Winfrey Gillette for Easter 2020
Chris the Lord Is Risen Today
From the 2020 Global United Methodist Virtual Choir - watch as more than 300 United Methodists from around the world join together for a very special virtual choir anthem, Charles Wesley's “Christ the Lord is Risen Today."
Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed!
Thine Be the Glory
From the Easter Sunday 2021 Virtual Choir - watch as hundreds of United Methodists from across the globe join together to sing Thine Be The Glory
Praise God from Whom All Blessing Flow
Sung by Brooke, a Mars Hill United Methodist Church soprano
Online Holy Week Reflections & Prayers + Virtual Stations of the Cross
As you enter the latter part of Holy Week, we welcome and invite you to join us for A Holy Week Walk [or virtual walk], a modified online Holy Week reflection and meditation on the Stations of the Cross.
Read a pastor’s reflection for the week that we call most holy.
What Is Holy Week?
Holy Week is a week of observances leading to Christ’s death and resurrection. The sacred observance begins with Palm Sunday and continues through Maundy or Holy Thursday and Good Friday. It is from this pivotal week that the Christian Church derives its deepest ritual, theological and missional life — everything we do in our collective worship, our doctrine, and our mission as a Church is rooted in, leads to, and springs from Holy Week.
It is during Holy Week that the life and mission of Jesus Christ meet their biggest test as Jesus stares directly into the face of the structures of sin and the powers of death and remains true to his calling and the work of his Father’s kingdom.
On Good Friday, Jesus is executed by crucifixion. And on the third day, we encounter the resurrection, where God raises Christ from death in a sure and certain pledge of raising all of us who are found in him.
In Holy Week, everything is here — life, sin, love, death, with life and love overcoming sin and death. This week remembers, enacts, and participates in the hope of the renewing of all creation, starting with our lives and loves, here and now.