A Narrative In Concert

There is something about a song that I have never been quite able to nail down. Something that has always echoed somewhere deep inside.

Tonight, I attended a concert. Two of my favorite musicians, Derek Webb and Sandra McCracken, were playing. Their role in the concert was brief, but their music, as always, was powerful. The majority of the concert revolved around another musician Andrew Peterson and a CD he made a few years back entitled Behold The Lamb.

I've been to many Christmas events. This was unlike any other. I have seen the "greatest story ever told" acted out. I have participated in more than a few of those reenactments. I have listened many Christmas' in church, and on Christmas Eve at home, to it being read aloud. I have heard many cantatas. I have participated in a few as well. But, I don't think I have ever heard it in song.

This is a difference that is clear to me, but perhaps not to you. By song, I mean to suggest a poem set to music. Cantatas are wonderful, but they are typically too stiff for me. It's not lyrical enough -- it's too musical...too polished. But the Christmas story in song....well...there's an idea.

Tonight was just that. But it wasn't just a poem. It was an epoch poem. The entire course of the Old Testament, Intertestimental Period and the "fullness of time" was represented in uninterrupted music. No talking. Just the playing of instruments and the lyrical singing of voices.

And then it hit me, why songs echo within me.

Songs have this uncanny ability to tell a story. And, frankly, there is no better story to tell in song.