Brandde ons hart niet - beurtzand, tussenzang = Were Not Our Hearts Burning - Antiphonal, Interlude Song (Luke 24), 1979 - 1981

Oosterhuis is calling on the story in Luke 24:32, of the disciples on the road to Emmaus in the aftermath of the Resurrection. They were mourning the death of their loved one, their hope had been taken away from them. Suddenly, they were joined by a stranger on the road, and as they walked along the way together, he began to open up the Scriptures for them. Then, when they sat down to eat their evening meal, the stranger continues to surprise them in the way he blest and broke the bread for them; only Jesus had ever done that at their last supper together, not in silence, but uniquely with words which tore open their hearts and their memories. As the scales fell from their eyes, they were astonished at the words the stranger had used, inflaming their hearts, their hopes, and their lives. As Marcy Weckler Barr wrote in her setting of The Road To Emmaus, We did not know him by the words he said, we knew him in the breaking of the bread. There are parallels in this story with that of the Ancients, who journeyed into the open countryside to sow their crops in sorrow, their tears of repentance irrigating the soil, only to later return home in tears of joy with their harvest on their shoulders (Psalm 126). In each case, fertility was the outcome, of a rich harvest beyond imagining. Life is indestructible, and those with eyes, ears and minds to know this will always be open to the possibilities of new experiences, of life-made-new, to be reaped on earth, the grounding of heaven. Huijbers chose the chant Exsurge because of its association with this ancient custom of the Ember and Rogation Day processions into the fields, Rise up, O Lord, help us and free us, according to your name. Rogation days were held during penitential seasons to invoke God's good will. This custom is found in all agrarian civilizations, and Judaism was no exception. He and Oosterhuis had previously composed the setting of Psalm 126 (Home From Our Exile, JM 269), which immortalized the experience of Sow seed in sadness, harvest in gladness! The act of shedding penitential tears was seen as a symbolic fertilizing of the soil, and as a request for God's mercy. In later Christianity, priests were called upon to bless the barren and fallow fields, sprinkling them with holy water as a symbol of shedding tears in repentance. Exurge was one of many chants sung during these processions. - Tony Barr