Keith and Kristyn Getty Serve Up Ethereal Christmas Show at NYC's Carnegie Hall
NEW YORK — On the New York City leg of their annual An Irish Christmas – A Celebration of Carols concert tour held inside the prestigious Carnegie Hall on Tuesday night, preeminent modern hymn writers Keith and Kristyn Getty justified their "modern" billing.
With special guests Grammy and Tony Award winning singer and actress Heather Headley, bassist extraordinaire John Patitucci, and spoken word artist Blaire Linne among others, the Gettys delivered an ethereal narration of the Christmas story that was so pitch-perfect for the urbane crowd it was almost narcotic.
At appropriate intervals during the event, audience members in the sold out concert hall clapped, listened and watched with sometimes awestruck gazes as the singers and musicians sang, danced and played music. And even though everything, including the subtle call to repentance near the end of the show, was about Jesus, the crowd willingly embraced it all until the end.
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Hymns, Keith Getty gently told the audience, "are the treasures of the Church. They are as old as Christianity itself." The Christmas story, he explained, is a story that has traditionally been told in songs.
And there was no mistake about who the Christmas story was about as the crowd sang old carol favorites with the performers like "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing" and "O Come All Ye Faithful."
Kristyn Getty performed several songs, including a new lullaby written for her three daughters called "Consider the Stars."
Headley delivered a powerful rendition of "Oh Holy Night," while Linne shared an arresting interpretation of the Christmas story.
Near the end of the two-hour presentation, Alistair Begg, senior pastor of Parkside Church just outside of Cleveland, Ohio, delivered a sermon like he was sharing a bit of poetry.
He talked about the first time Mary brought Jesus to the temple and how after seeing Jesus, Simeon declared that he could die now because the Holy Spirit had revealed to him that he would not die until after he had seen Jesus.
Being good, he told the crowd, is not enough to be saved.
"You see, it's a supernatural thing. Only God softens hard hearts, only God opens blind eyes. Simeon said 'I can die now.' That is a question for each of us to ask, can I die now?" he asked.
Intellect, he explained, won't save mankind.
"There is a way back to God from the dark paths of sin. There is a door that is open that we may go in and it's at Calvary's cross, that's where we begin when we come as a sinner to Jesus. He has given His all for us," Begg said as the crowd applauded.
The experience was so surreal for some audience members they wondered aloud what just happened at the end of the show, but still concluded that even thought it was their first time seeing something like it, they thought it was "nice."
The show goes to Schermerhorn Symphony Center in Nashville, Tennessee, on Thursday.
