Easter/Good Friday/Lent

Rise Up, Get Going

Easter Sunday 2025; Our Saviour’s Mpls

Chorus:
Rise up now, get going.
Hope got out of that tomb!
Rise up now, get going.
Hope got out of that tomb!
Rise up now, get going.
Hope got out of that tomb!
Love’s on the move. Rise up, get going.

1. That stone of greed’s been rolled away. Hope got out of that tomb!
Corruption cuffed and hauled away. Hope got out of that tomb!
Abundance for us all today. Hope got out of that tomb!
Love’s on the move. Rise up, get going.

Photo by LOGAN WEAVER | @LGNWVR on Unsplash

2. Don’t wallow in a powerless thrall. Hope …
Lift up your head the Gardener calls . Hope …
No dawdling or justice stalls. Hope …
Love’s on the move. Rise up, get going.

3. Don’t look for Jesus ‘mongst the dead. Hope …
Go look where hungry folks are fed. Hope …
And bring 5000 loaves of bread. Hope …
Love’s on the move. Rise up, get going.

4. Go forth and follow Jesus’s feet. Hope …
There’s footprints on the path of peace. Hope …
They’re headed for the burdened street. Hope …
Love’s on the move. Rise up, get going.

5. The stone sings Hallelujah. Hope …
The tree sings Hallelujah. Hope …
The star sings Hallelujah. Hope …
(So) How ’bout if we all sing Hallelujah? (to v6)

6. Sing Halle, Hallelujah. Hope …
Sing Halle, Hallelujah. Hope …
Sing Halle, Hallelujah. Hope …
Love’s on the move. Rise up, get going.

Words and music by Bret Hesla.
© 2025 Bret Hesla. All rights reserved. Use with permission, please.
Licensed via OneLicense.net. Contact: Bret.hesla@gmail.com.

Recording credits: Bret Hesla vocals and ukulele, Tim Gustafson guitar, Paul Andress piano

Thanks to Paul Andress and Tim Gustafson for playing on the recording! And thanks to Cooper Sherry for the great downloadable piano score. And how about those musicians on the live recording: Tom Witt on piano, Paul D’Amico Carper on fiddle, Elizabeth D’Amico Carper on vocals!

God Save This Breaking Land

Good Friday 2025, Our Saviour’s Mpls

1. God save this breaking land before we’re past repair.
We’ve let false profits ravage the gift all creatures share.
Frayed rules like loos’ning bands, that once bound greedy hands,
No longer guard the future now. God save this breaking land.

2. Tall fences painted white, like sentries, stand their ground
On lakes where great abundance has private shoreline ’round.
While “Mine but never yours” fouls every aquifer.
A plague of thirst and struggle looms. God save this breaking land.

3. Deep buried tribal hate released like rabid dogs
Is roaming every valley stalking the common good
As speakers crafting lies blare loudly through the skies
To drown the sparrow songs of hope. God save this breaking land.

4. You made the universe from voids of empty space.
Why not repair between us for wid’ning wounds of race?
From boardrooms everywhere, out to the crowded square,
Roll away the stone of priv’lege now. God save this breaking land.

5. God save this breaking land. Come resurrect us all.
Let new transforming skin grow where all is cracked and raw.
Empower these feet to move, clad with persistent shoes,
From shattered hopes to firm resolve. God save this breaking land.

Words and music by Bret Hesla. © 2024 Bret Hesla.
All rights reserved. Use with permission, please. Licensed via OneLicense.net. Contact: Bret.hesla@gmail.com.

I’m guessing your spirit is in a similar place as mine, dividing its time between lament and resistance. This song is a lament. The lyrics are harsh, like the time we’re living in. I suspect it will take some courage on the part of your leaders to include this song in your service or event.

I find a certain release in the singing of it; the melody has a traditional hymn-like shape to it. You could do it as a solo, or as a choir piece. My vote, as usual, would be to let the whole group sing it.

Alt lyrics: After I initially sent this song around, I got a quick reply from a woman in Kansas, saying “Sorta seems to me that WE need to save this breaking land.” So I wrote this set of alternative lyrics, with more explicit call for some human agency, for her UU choir.

Rise For This Breaking Land

1. Rise for this breaking land from couches of despairWe’ve let false profits ravage the gift all creatures share. Frayed rules like loos’ning bands, that once bound greedy hands,No longer guard the future now. Rise for this breaking land.

2. Tall fences painted white, like sentries, stand their ground On lakes where great abundance has private shoreline ’round. While “Mine but never yours” fouls every aquifer.The common good has been laid low. Rise for this breaking land.

3. Deep buried tribal hate, released like rabid hounds [dogs]Is stalking every valley, backing wide welcome downAs speakers crafting lies blare loudly through the skiesTo drown the sparrow songs of hope. (To spew their toxic bilge of blame)Rise for this breaking land.

4. Who’ll bring unflinching eyes to look in sorrow’s face?Who’ll seek repair between us for wid’ning wounds of race?From boardrooms everywhere, out to the crowded square,Roll away the stone of priv’lege now. Rise for this breaking land.

5. Rise for this breaking land. Be resurrected now. Let new transforming skin grow where all is cracked and raw.Let feet of thousands move, clad with persistent shoes, From shattered hopes to firm resolve. Rise for this breaking land.

Words and music by Bret Hesla. © 2025 Bret Hesla. All rights reserved. Use with permission, please. Licensed via OneLicense.net. Contact: Bret.hesla@gmail.com.

When I Feel Despair

When I Feel Despair

When I feel despair
I remember that truth and love
Have always won.

Lyrics based on a quote by Ghandi. Adapted and set to music by Bret Hesla
©2010 Bret Hesla. All rights reserved. Use with permission, please.
Licensed via OneLicense.net. Contact: Bret.hesla@gmail.com.

The song works well in a contemplative service, evening service, interspersed with prayers or readings, alternate singing and humming, etc. Including a Good Friday setting. It also has easy SATB for folks to jump in on.

“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it–always.” Mahatma Gandhi

Also this quote from Howard Zinn:
“To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.
What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.
And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”

Thanks to Zach Busch for the wonderful piano score!

Where Love and Justice Combine

Verse 1 demo

Where Love and Justice Combine

1. Where love and justice combine
Where love and justice combine
God has welcomed us home.
O beloved of mine, may we dwell there
Where love and justice combine,
Where love and justice combine
God has welcomed us home.
May we never be moved.

2. Deep in the business of life
Deep in the business of life
God has welcomed us home.
O beloved of mine, may we dwell there
Deep in the business of life
Deep in the business of life
God has welcomed us home.
May we never be moved.

3. Sharing the fruit and the land …

4. ‘Mid every sorrow and joy …

5. Spreading the table with peace …

6. Held in community’s arms …

Words and music by Bret Hesla. Written on commission for Faith Mennonite Church, Minneapolis Minnesota, on their 50th anniversary.
© 2011 Bret Hesla. All rights reserved. Use with permission, please.
Licensed via OneLicense.net. Contact: Bret.hesla@gmail.com.

“Love one another” seems simple enough. Clearly it isn’t. But what a wonderful and badly needed vision and calling, to build a world through lives of compassion and love. Verse 1 is very loosely based on a few lines from the Latin text, Ubi caritas et amor, attributed to Paulinus of Aquileia around 800 CE, and often chanted or sung on Maundy Thursday during foot washing.

We Will Remember

We Will Remember

Anonymous gravemarker at a former Minnesota State Hospital. Photo by Advocating Change Together

We will remember. We will remember.
Your story is in our hearts. We will remember.
We will remember. We will remember.
Dear sister, we will remember you.

We’ll call your name out … [Hmmmmm]
We’ll call your name out … [Hmmmmm]
We’ll call your name out … [Hmmmmm]
Dear sister, we will remember you.

Song Uses: The song also works well for All Saints Day, and other gatherings of remembrance.

E.g. alt lyrics for 2025 Gaza genocide memorial service:

We will remember. We will remember
Your suffering is in our hearts, we will remember
We will remember. We will remember
Dear mothers we will remember you.
(Dear brothers, sisters, fathers, children, people, martyrs)

Song background: Throughout the 20th century, thousands of Minnesotans with developmental disabilities were placed in large, state-run institutions. Conditions were often inhumane. Those who died while living there, more than 13,000, were buried in unmarked or numbered graves–no name. Since the mid-90s, leaders with disabilities at St. Paul-based Advocating Change Together, along with allies, have been replacing numbered grave markers with the actual names and birth/death dates of the people buried. Remembering them with dignity. This song was written to sing at ceremonies honoring the deceased, at which their proper headstones are unveiled. These were moving and uplifting events, led by people with disabilities.

Songleading: As for singing, it’s mostly mi-re-do. Pretty easy to sing, after you’ve heard it one time. The second verse, “we’ll call your name out” has humming, during which people can call aloud the names of those being remembered. Any simple accompaniment will work great.

Pave the Way with Branches

Pave the Way With Branches

1. Jesus is coming.
Pave the way with branches.
Jesus is coming. Hosannah.

Ch: Hosannah. Jesus is coming.
Hosannah to the Prince of Peace.

2. Hope for the downtrod …

3. Land for the landless …

4. Debts are forgiven …

5. Release for the captives …

Spanish:
Cristo ya viene con mantos y palmas.
Cristo ya viene hossana.

Ref: Hossana cristo ya viene.
Hossana yo lo quiero ver.

Words and music by Bret Hesla. Spanish lyrics Jose Antonio Machado
© 1999 Bret Hesla. Admin Augsburg Fortress Publishers.
Also licensed via OneLicense.net. All rights reserved.
Use with permission, please. Contact: Bret.hesla@gmail.com.

Origin: I wrote this song on an April morning in 1999. I was walking down a gravel road near my home in southern Minnesota, trying to come up with a song for Palm Sunday. I didn’t have a pencil or paper to keep track of my ideas. So I just kept walking till a song came out that was easy to remember. When I got home I wrote it down.

About: This energetic Palm Sunday song urges us to move out into the street singing and proclaiming the transformation that Jesus spoke of and lived out in his life. Challenging powers to release to the incarcerated. Bringing good news to the powerless. Welcoming the immigrant. Compassion and love of enemies. Perhaps even allowing the coming realm of God to be how Jesus described: pervasive but a bit unnoticed, small, ordinary, like a mustard seed.

How to: It’s perfect for a paperless traveling procession by the whole congregation. Leader sings once, all repeat. Then have a supportive choir, pre-primed to jump in on SATB; pass out simple percussion (hand drum, shakers) and find a good song leader who can call out the verses. Wind your way through the church, or the neighborhood. Imagine the transformation.

Adapt as needed: Some groups have adapted this as, “Justice is coming.” Great idea. I think the rest of the adaptation would replace Pave the way with branches to “Pave the way with action.” Replace Hosannah with “Be strong now” and replace To the Prince of Peace with “In the way of peace”.

Also, of course, there’s lots of other room here to make up new lyrics. In case you need a nudge, here’s your official nudge. C’mon. Sing what makes sense to you in your deepest heart. This is our one go-around on this earth.

———-Attention Good Friday: Because He Stood: a song to help remove atonement from Good Friday, and focus on Jesus life and the threat he posed to the powers of the day—-

Here’s how Edina Community Lutheran Church used the song during the time of social distancing

And here’s a children’s choir from Tacoma WA singing Pave the Way with Branches recorded remotely during the pandemic. From St. Mark’s Lutheran, by director Cooper Sherry.