The Year Christmas Came Early

Sitting in the southbound-backseat, en route to the most anticipated event of the month (if not the year), my mind briefly went back to how I’d ended up there. The saga began over a month before the fateful night that ushered in a fourteen-day-early Christmas celebration.

My friend (and personal convert to Andrew Peterson), Mason drew my attention to Andy’s upcoming mid-December show in Cleburne, TX. It was the only Texas show scheduled during 2009’s Advent season and we hoped with much hope indeed that it would be a Behold show. You see, each December Andy P. and his beyond-talented friends selflessly take a month away from their homes and families to tour the nation telling the “true tall tale of the coming of Christ” through the music of Behold the Lamb of God.

The primary means by which Mason and I had our discussion attempting to find out whether this show was to be a Behold show was twitter. It was there that Andrew Peterson himself said something to us.

AndrewPeterson: @derrickoliver Hey fellas, All shows in December are Behold shows. Hope you guys can make it–say, are you that one guy who hugged me?

As if I was lacking motivation in any way to attend this show, that tweet pushed me clear over the edge. There was no way I’d miss the show.

I called the church at which the concert was to be held and told them of my need for 8 tickets (in accordance with my mantra that things are better when shared). My heart sunk to my large intestine as the lady on the other side of the telephone informed me that the show was sold out. And thus began my persistent-widow pursuit of acquiring tickets to a sold-out show. Within a week my passion and charm made it all the way to Cleburne (via my cellular phone) and I’d managed to get five tickets.

We pulled up to the church and handed our tickets to the ticket-taking lady, who turned out to be the lady who had been so pivotal in my attaining these tickets. I thanked her profusely and we took our seats inside the church.

As Andrew started reading from the introduction of Sally-Lloyd Jones’ The Jesus Storybook Bible, a text that I knew would usher in the organ swells and percussion that get the Behold ball rolling, I noticed that I had a smile on my face that I couldn’t remove. All the months of anticipation were going to be realized in the next forty-five minutes.

From the moment I noticed my uncontrollable the smile at the show’s outset, to Ben Shive’s striking the piano’s middle C marking the beginning of the album’s second-to-last song “Behold the Lamb of God,” I swear time froze. I was as lost in the music as I’d ever been before in my life. It was simply surreal.

I was brought back to reality when I heard Andrew seem to mess up in singing the song. The lyrics of the song are as follows:

Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away our sin,
Behold the Lamb of God, the Light and Life of men;
Behold the Lamb of God, who died and rose again,
Behold the Lamb of God who comes, to take away our sins.

Quickly I realized that he wasn’t messing up. He hadn’t forgotten the words, or had a problem with his throat. He was choked up by the weight of the words he was singing. Having written the lyrics a decade before, and having sung them countless times across 10 years of Behold tours, he is still moved by the magnitude of the message being portrayed: that God came to Earth as a baby, lived a perfect life among men, died to pay the penalty for their sins, rose and conquered Sin and Death. Andrew got choked up as did every single other person in that room. It was, and is, Beautiful.

After the show ended and everyone had dried their eyes, we waited around so I could give Andrew the hug I’d promised him on twitter. The line to meet the man was quite long, and our crew was rather hungry since we’d been forced to skip dinner to ensure making the show on time. My friends love me well and showed me the grace to hang around in that line to hug the man whose art has opened up my eyes to the Reality of the Messiah’s coming more than anyone else’s.

As we drew closer and closer to the front of the line, I handed Jon my camera to capture a photo of me and my friend Andrew. When my turn came, I shook Andy’s hand, and informed him that I was going to hug him. And hug him I did. And Jon, who has become proficient in using my camera, documented it as well as anybody could have: