Bravo to Louie Giglio and his Passion team for presenting their second annual Good Friday event in Atlanta. Good Friday at Verizon—so named after the sponsored amphitheater in which the event was held—could easily have been called a concert, with top-draw names like Chris Tomlin, Matt Redman, Christy Nockels, and Kristian Stanfill on hand.

 

Clearly, though, the Passion folks were aiming for more than a standard musical performance. Billed as a “Contemplation and Celebration of the Cross”, Good Friday was closer in spirit to a church service – a remarkable church service with a congregation of 12,000 people who showed an extraordinarily singular focus on worshiping the crucified Savior.

 

Last year’s inaugural event was tumultuous to say the least, delayed by violent (though somehow fitting) weather and tornado warnings. Once it finally started, the worshipful focus was more on celebration than contemplation. Israel Houghton’s addition to that lineup brought vigor and festivity.

This year, the team’s experience with their local Passion City Church showed. The theme of the cross was much more consistent, and the mood contained a better combination of unbridled celebration with the somber tones necessary for consideration of Jesus’ crucifixion.

 

 

The emphasis on church-over-concert was set from the start. Tomlin, Nockels, Stanfill, and band members quietly took the stage just after 7:00 with neither spotlights nor introduction. Soft purple down-lights made it barely evident who was onstage, while instrumental music backed words of welcome on the screen. Then the first gentle chords of Jesus Messiah were played and the theological theme of the evening was set with the first line: “He became sin Who knew no sin.” After that came the Hillsong anthem “Mighty to Save” and Tomlin’s “Sing, Sing, Sing”—neither one fit the theme as well, but they still provided familiar choruses to keep the audience singing.

 

Louie Giglio then offered an in-person welcome and announced a very recent development: the event was being streamed to radio websites across the country. Some 40,000 people watched online from every state in the USA, as well as 22 other countries. Giglio announced that an offering would be held to benefit three specific efforts for rebuilding in Haiti. Following the Passion conference theme and the concept for onemillioncan.com, he identified specific tangible goals for the evening: building a certain number of shelters, wells, and Compassion projects. He then announced the personal appearance – on bicycle, no less – of two high school students who had just ridden across the country for Haiti and declared that the offering this evening would complete their $50,000 fundraising goal.

 

More music followed—including Tomlin’s extended multilingual outro to “How Great Is Our God” from Passion’s world tour—leading to the first part of Giglio’s message and a tighter focus on the cross. Subtle piano played through the entire message, but make no mistake: this was a sermon. Giglio’s talk on the history of the Passover was audaciously long for an event like this, but the crowd’s attention never waned. Aisles were empty, seats were full, and voices were silent.

 

Giglio concluded his message with another daring device. He walked off a darkened stage in silence while a large screen displayed a paraphrase of the entire Biblical account of the crucifixion, from Gethsemane to “It is finished,” accompanied only by piano and cello. During the display, a group of volunteers carried a large, rough-hewn cross from the back of the amphitheater to the front of the stage, where it was hoisted on chains 40 feet in the air, lit by a single spotlight. The sun set just behind the stage during the procession, “and darkness descended”. Christy Nockels’ passionate delivery of “Grace Flows Down” perfectly punctuated the reverent scene.

 

Matt Redman’s band then took the stage, and with incredibly efficient setup launched into “Nothin but the Blood” and “You Alone Can Rescue.” The power of the cross and remembrance of Christ’s suffering lent a barely constrained passion to each performance, from the conclusion of Redman’s set to Nockels’ “Healing Is in Your Hands” and Kristian Stanfill’s “Jesus Paid It All.” Familiar songs became more poignant and meaningful in the context of the evening and the delivery; a full string orchestra backed Tomlin’s “I Will Rise,” transforming a song of personal trial and loss into a powerful Easter anthem.

 

Not surprisingly, the set borrowed heavily from the recent Passion 2010 conference in Atlanta, but the song selection in the latter half maintained the theme well. Protracted choruses to songs like “Our God” stirred the crowd and maintained energy throughout the event’s protracted length: over three and a half hours, with no intermission.

 

The evening’s sound was good, although the instruments were mixed too far above background vocalists. It rarely mattered since the volume of the audience/congregation often overwhelmed the voices of the worship leaders. There was also an odd disconnect between Redman (who was only seen for his set) and the other artists. The webcast was well-executed, and the evening’s bold offering goal was more than doubled, with over $185,000 raised.

 

It is unfortunate that events like Good Friday at Verizon are not more common. When it comes to seasons of spiritual significance in Christian music, Easter’s got nothing on Christmas. December sees dozens of annual Christmas concert tours, radio stations switching to an all-Christmas music format, retail shelves stuffed with new Christmas releases, neighborhood Christmas caroling, and more. But Easter rarely sees any of that. A radio station would be hard-pressed to switch to a single day of Lented music or an all-Easter celebration, let alone a month. Not to suggest that one season has more profound spiritual significance than another, but it’s curious that modern Christianity continues to struggle with establishing a richer music tradition for Lent and Easter.

 

Perhaps for songwriters, the Lenten season and Easter represent a much greater challenge. The emotion of Christmas is almost entirely celebratory, whereas contemplation of Christ’s suffering is more somber. But then there are plenty of songs written about Jesus’s sacrifice and the cross, and the Resurrection is certainly as celebratory as Emmanuel’s Birth.

 

Or maybe it’s that a “Contemplation of the Cross” brings us face to face with our sin. When you think about it, Lent and Easter arguably have a richer theological landscape to explore in song. Let us hope that more artists will follow the lead of these Passion artists and give this profound season the music it deserves.