Behold the Lamb of God

Okay, so it was a week in coming; here, at last, are my comments on Andrew Peterson's Behold the Lamb of God tour. Mrs. E and I were able to attend last Friday night when they were in Houston (many thanks to Mrs. E for tracking down a baby sitter, which was hard this time).


The banner says that the tour features Andrew Peterson, Sara Groves, Bebo Norman, and "many more". In reality, I think the tour should be renamed "The Andy's Christmas Tour 2007", as the many more included Andrew Osenga and Andrew Gullahorn, who along with Jill Phillips made up the six central performers. AP wrote up a full list of those on the tour on his blog, The Rabbit Room. (Side note: If you're looking for a good blog to read, go to The Rabbit Room. Now. Besides AP, he has a double handful of friends helping out, including Jason Gray, Randall Goodgame, and Ron Block of AKUS. Some very deep and good thoughts going on there.)

The show was in two parts, with the first half being music in the round. Each of the six artists took turns playing a song, going around the group twice. While they were singing, the others would sporadically come up and join in on harmony, making a nice shared experience. Andy O played one of my favorites of his, "Swing Wide the Glimmering Gates", and Sara's songs I have long loved. I'd not heard much from Jill Phillips recently, but enjoyed what I heard. I'd never heard Andy Gullahorn's music previous to last Friday night: my first taste was a song he wrote in memory of a toe that Andy Osenga lost in a lawn mower mishap. It was simultaneously beautiful, poignant, and hilarious as he sang of a little piggy regretting its new-found freedom ("His last meal was roast beef . . ."). Even better was Andy O's harmonizing to the chorus, adding that nice personal touch

Listening to him and his humor (which Mrs. E commented seemed so much like my own) makes me think I should get some more of his music. He even writes reviews of all his shows (since no one else will), but keeps them interesting by writing them all in Haiku. For example:

I had two women
Ask me to go out with them
Ben's grandma and aunt

or

Wonderful house show
Well, the house was wonderful
And there was a show

My kind of laughs.

After the individual songs Bebo gave a brief talk, ostensibly about Compassion International; but he talked at least as much about Gary Haugen, International Justice Mission, and other things. Really, he talked about compassion (lower-case "c") and God's people. Talking about it, Mrs. E and I decided to sponsor a child with Compassion for the first time. We've supported so many other things (locally and internationally) that we (I) had been hesitant to keep spreading to other groups. After seeing how Lil'E responded to getting a Christmas gift for a little girl at a children's home a couple of weeks ago, though, we decided that she is more than ready to be sharing in this work. So now we will be writing letters to a 4-year old girl in Brazil and telling her that we love her and want to see her cared for in her daily needs.

After a brief intermission (during which the musicians apparently play Speed Scrabble) everyone came out and performed the entirety of AP's Behold the Lamb of God. Beautiful music, and a great look at the scriptural anticipation of Jesus' birth. Not many people can put Jesus' genealogy to music, but Andrew did well.

I could write more, but I've rambled enough already. In short, go see the show. If you can not get to a show this year, buy the CD and go next year. That is an official Euphrony recommendation (for what it's worth - I also recommend Pure Luck, and people may argue with me about that).

Tags: Andrew Peterson, Andrew Osenga, Andrew Gullahorn, Sara Groves, Bebo Norman, Jill Phillips, Behold the Lamb of God, Compassion International, International Justice Mission, Concert, Haiku