In my experience, one of the main characteristics of the Hispanic praise and worship is passion. It is impressive to see how you can walk into a Spanish church and immediately feel it. And if you’ve ever been to one, you will know what I mean. It’s like every single person inside the room fully understands every word of the hymn or praise song and can really feel the music. I think a big part of that is the way hymns translate from English to Spanish, using more descriptive language.
I think one of my favorite worship songs, “Vaso de Alabastro,” is a good example of how descriptive Spanish worships songs are. In the chorus it says, “Yo soy un vaso de alabastro, soy el perfume del Señor, mi alto precio pagó en la cruz, me quebraré me derramaré, en los pies de Jesús.”
My favorite part is the last piece that literally translates to, “I will break and pour myself at feet of Jesus.” It’s the same thing in Portuguese (my favorite translation of the song) which the last line says, “Pra perfumar, vou me quebrar, aos pés de Jesus” and this translates to, “to perfume or to be a pleasant smell I have to break myself at the feet of Jesus.”
If you don’t get chills from that then you’re obviously not getting the message.
This song is not only referring to Mary Magdalene and the bottle of perfume that she used to wash Jesus’ feet. The song is also describing how humble you have to be to be able to do an act like this, how aware you have to be of the sacrifice that Jesus made for us. I think having strong lyrics like this helps to surrender to God and realize that sending his Son was a big deal.