Gather Round Ye Children Come

Last Monday, Hilary and I went to a concert called "Behold the Lamb of God" written by Andrew Peterson. He describes it like this:

This Christmas will be the fifth consecutive year that I’ve performed what I hesitantly call a musical about the birth of Christ. The reason ‘musical’ doesn’t really work is that when we think of a musical we usually think of people dressed like donkeys and evenings full of badly delivered speaking parts.
What I wrote is a concert that tells a story. There’s no speaking--only songs, some of which are intimate, some epic, some humorous, all with a purpose, which is to convey the true tall tale of the coming of God into the world.
What makes this bunch of songs unique is that I wanted to remind (or teach) the audience that the story of Christmas doesn’t begin with the birth of Jesus. Many people tend to forget or have never even learned that the entire Bible is about Jesus, not just the New Testament. So the musical begins with Moses and the symbolic story of the Passover (Passover Us) and works its way through the kings and the prophets with their many prophecies about the coming Messiah (So Long, Moses) to the awful four hundred years of silence before God told Mary she’d be having a baby (Deliver Us). After the song called Matthew’s Begats, which lists the genealogy of Jesus, the story picks up in more familiar territory with Mary and Joseph and the actual birth (It Came To Pass, Labor of Love). The final song is called Behold, the Lamb of God, which ties together the Passover and the beauty and scope of the story.
For the past three years the concert has been overwhelming from a spiritual standpoint. I can honestly say that I haven’t made it through one performance of the show without crying, which isn’t a testimony to the concert as much as it is to the power of the story of Jesus. And it really is that story that’s being told, in a new way. The audiences have expressed to me what I most want to hear, which is that they were blown away, that they got goose bumps, that they felt truly prepared to celebrate the Christmas season for what it’s really worth. I also heard over and over again that they wanted to take the record home.
Over the past few years, along with the string quartet I’ve had numerous guests appear in the concert: Phil Keaggy, Alison Krauss, Phil Madeira, Fernando Ortega, Ron Block (Union Station), Sean and Sara Watkins (Nickel Creek), Jill Phillips, Randall Goodgame, Jonathan and Amanda Noel, Todd Bragg, Silers Bald, Laura Story, Andrew Osenga, Steve Hindalong and others. This year the concert is being held at the Ryman Auditorium.

It was incredible! Guests included, Bebo Norman, Sara Groves, Andrew Osenga (once part of the Normals, now part of Caedmon's Call), Jill Phillips and Andy Gullahorn (Jill's husband...check out his website...he's hilarious!)
The first part of the show Andrew P. introduced each guest and as he did that they each sang one of their songs. They went a couple of rounds like this all taking turns singing songs, then the second part of the show was 'Behold the Lamb of God'. They would take turns singing different songs, some all singing together. It was SO good. I was in tears at the end and definitely had goosebumps.
I wanted to point out to you these songs. They are amazingly written and so I thought I would post the lyrics. I'm going to do a song at a time here and there so that hopefully you will actually read them. If I post all of the lyrics to all of the songs...there may be the tendency to just scan it instead of really reading it. So really read it.

So the first song: Click here to listen to it. (scroll down to get to the album 'Behold the Lamb of God' and click on 'open player', then click on the song title)
You can download the album for $10 here. It is not available on itunes.

Gather Round ye Children Come

Gather round ye children come
Listen to the old, old story
Of the power of death undone
By an infant born of glory
Son of God, Son of Man
Gather round, remember now
How creation held its breath
How it let out a sigh
And it filled up the sky with the angels
Son of God, Son of Man

So sing out with joy for the brave little boy
Who was God, but he made himself nothing
Well he gave up his pride and he came here to die
Like a man

Therefore God exalted him
to the place of highest praises
And he gave him a name above every name
That at the very name of Jesus, Son of God

We would sing out with joy for the brave little boy
Who was God, but he made himself nothing
Well he gave up his pride and he came here to die
Like a man

So in heaven and earth and below
Every knee would bow and worship
And every tongue would proclaim
That Jesus, He reigns with the angels

So sing out with joy for the brave little boy
Who was God but he made himself nothing
Well he gave up his pride and he came here to die
Like a man

So gather round ye children come
Listen to the old old story
Of the power of death undone
By an infant born of glory
Son of God, Son of Man