Behold the Lamb of God~A Soundtrack for Advent

Last year I discovered the wonderful Christmas musical/album, Behold the Lamb of God, by Andrew Peterson (I'm pretty sure the hat tip for this discovery goes to Justin Taylor, whose blog provides me with more great resources and links than I could ever exhaust) and I have just begun listening to it again in preparation for the celebration of the advent of Christ. A gifted musician, Peterson is also a gifted theologian, who begins the Wonderful Story as it should begin: in the days of the patriarchs and prophets. He says:

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.

You can listen to samples of the different tracks via the widget above and you can enjoy the third track, So Long Moses, in the YouTube video. And note, the widget links you to the recently released 10th Anniversary album which contains all the recorded tracks and all tracks, live.



***Edit*** You can sample the whole album, with lyrics here
(HT Justin Taylor, of course)