Silent Night (2 page)

The carol (or lullaby, sometimes called “Cradle Song”) first surfaced in America rather than Luther’s Germany with the publication, in 1885, of a Lutheran Sunday school book. It popped up again, two years later, in Dainty Songs for Little Lads and Lasses and has been a much-loved part of the festive celebrations ever since, especially with children.

The idea that the Lord was once a child who needed cared for, just like them, appeals to the little ones. But it’s an appeal that doesn’t seem to wane as those children grow older. When adult carolers sing, “Bless all the dear children in Thy tender care, and fit us for heaven to live with Thee there,” you just know the children they are singing about still live in their hearts.

“Away in a Manger” is a lullaby to the Lord—and to the world.

And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn
.

L
UKE
2:7

I heard the bells on Christmas day
Their old familiar carols play
,
And wild and sweet the words repeat
Of peace on earth, goodwill to men
.
I thought how, as the day had come
,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along the unbroken song
Of peace on earth, goodwill to men
.

U
nderlying the joy and wonder of the Nativity is the never-to-be-forgotten fact that Jesus came to this world because we
needed
Him. Left to its own devices, humanity tends to take the downward path. This fact must have been all too painfully obvious while men fought kinsmen and countrymen in the American Civil War.

Months away from the end of the conflict, having lost his wife and having received news of his son’s injury in battle, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow put pen to paper and wrote the poem “Christmas Bells.” Given the dreadful situation in which he found himself, it would have been understandable if his work became an ode to hopelessness.

Longfellow
did
write about humankind’s dire condition. “And in despair I bowed my head. ‘There is no peace on earth,’ I said, ‘for hate is strong and mocks the song of peace on earth, goodwill to men.’ ”

Yet, despite what the poet and his country were going through, the poem is one of hope and deliverance. “God is not dead,” he wrote, “nor doth He sleep; the wrong shall fail, the right prevail.”

Twelve years after peace was restored, John Baptiste Calkin, English composer and music teacher, rearranged “Christmas Bells.” He left out the more overt references to the war, making the message more universal, and set it to the tune “Waltham.” So a poem born at the height of a bloody conflict made the transition to Christmas carol.

“I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” is a message, sent to us through the faithful heart of a great poet, that in times of national crisis or times of personal need, the Lord (whatever anyone else may say) is there for each one of us.

Because we needed Him, He came. And the chiming bells remind us—He is still here!

For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ
.

1 T
HESSALONIANS
5:9

It came upon the midnight clear
,
That glorious song of old
,
From angels bending near the earth
To touch their harps of gold
.
“Peace on the earth, goodwill to men
,
From heaven’s all-gracious King.”
The world in solemn stillness lay
To hear the angels sing
.

A
ll times have their trials, and for the past two thousand years, all times have the answer to those trials.

In Edmund Sears’s time the most pressing trials involved the “Forty-niner” gold rush, industrialization, and buildup to civil war. In Jesus’ time it was the dominion of the Roman sword. And today? Well …

This gentle minister wrote a beautiful poem pointing out that no matter what our woes, the solution is right there for each of us. Ten years later Richard Storrs Willis was so inspired by the poem, he put it to music, creating one of the earliest American Christmas carols.

Sears never mentions the Nativity, but his image of mighty angels bending low reminds us that they were there for a purpose—to announce the birth of Christ.

In telling us the angels still hover above, singing “that glorious song of old,” Sears makes it plain that Christ is still here, or the angels would have gone home long ago!

The problem is not God, he says; the problem is us. The world has deafened itself by the sounds of conflict until it no longer seems to hear the beautiful music of salvation.

Come Christmastime, when the frantic shopping is done, when the family has been fed and the gifts opened, when the hubbub dies down, wouldn’t that be the perfect time to listen awhile? Then take that moment of communion forward and find a space for it in each day of the new year.

The angels still sing. We just need to lay aside our earthly cares and still our earthly noises long enough to hear them. No, we need to do more than that!

As Sears points out, those angels won’t be satisfied until they hear us singing “that glorious song of old” right back at them!

Also I say unto you, Whosoever shall confess me before men, him shall the Son of man also confess before the angels of God
.

LUKE 12:8

O little town of Bethlehem
,
How still we see thee lie!
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep
The silent stars go by
.
Yet in thy dark streets shineth
The everlasting Light;
The hopes and fears of all the years
Are met in thee tonight
.

B
ethlehem today doesn’t bear much resemblance to the Bethlehem of biblical times. It seems like everything changes—but some truths are eternal.

In 1865 Rector Phillips Brooks of Philadelphia was given a wonderful view of one such truth. Journeying on horseback from Jerusalem to Bethlehem, Brooks stopped for the night in the hills above his destination.

Even in 1865 Bethlehem would have been quite different from Jesus’ time, but Brooks was struck by the fact that this sleeping town was where the Lord came to earth. That fact would never change, and neither would the message He brought.

Assisting in a Christmas service in the “little town,” Brooks seemed to hear voices he knew well proclaiming the wonder of that holy birth.

He recorded his emotions in a poem that he showed to church organist Lewis Redner. Legend has it that the tune came to Redner on Christmas Eve and the Sunday school choir sang it for the first time the very next day.

As Brooks sat in the silence of the hills, that first nativity must not have seemed so long ago, because the consequences of it were still very present in his mind, just as they are still present in the world today.

As he points out in his beautiful carol, “Where meek souls will receive him still, the dear Christ enters in.”

Even in an age of security fences and army patrols, wherever children pray, wherever misery cries out, wherever charity watches and “faith holds wide the door,” Jesus will be there.

Bethlehem, like the rest of the world, has changed and will continue to change—but, as Brooks realized while watching that sleeping town, wherever a willing heart calls Christ to come in and stay, sins will be cast out and, no matter how many years have passed since the first one, it will be Christmas once more.

And thou Bethlehem, in the land of Juda, art not the least among the princes of Juda: for out of thee shall come a Governor, that shall rule my people Israel
.

M
ATTHEW
2:6

Love came down at Christmas
,
Love all lovely, Love divine;
Love was born at Christmas
,
Star and angels gave the sign
.
Worship we the Godhead
,
Love incarnate, Love divine;
Worship we our Jesus:
But wherewith for sacred sign?

C
hristina Georgina Rossetti was the daughter of an Italian political refugee. The family settled in London early in the nineteenth century and made a lasting impact in the artistic community. Christina’s brother, Dante, went on to help found a new painting style with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Meanwhile, she acquired her own fame as a poet—one of her most famous works being the poem that went on to become the hymn “In the Bleak Midwinter.”

The interests of brother and sister combined when Dante asked Christina to model for his painting “The Girlhood of Mary Virgin,” in which she, as Mary, is shown embroidering with her mother while a baby angel awaits the time to tell her of her destiny as the Lord’s mother.

God became Christina’s abiding passion. She turned down at least two marriage proposals because the suitors did not share her faith.

Away from the creative world, Christina proved her faith a real thing through her long-term commitment to and hands-on work in a refuge for “fallen” women. That love in practice at the cost of time, comfort, and perhaps even the respect of some of her peers, is reflected in “Love Came Down at Christmas.”

Originally called “Christmastide,” the poem was printed for the first time in 1885 in
Time Flies: A Reading Diary
. Later it was combined with a traditional Irish melody called “Garton,” to become the Christmas song sung today.

“Love Came Down at Christmas” slips delicately and in a few, simple words straight to the heart of Jesus’ mission on earth—that humankind should love God and each other.

God became human for us—and in her hymn Christina Rossetti asks how best we might repay that gift, how we might show the Lord, and each other, that we are His. We need a token, she decided. Something to identify us. And that “sacred sign” could only be love, “to God and all men.”

By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another
.

J
OHN
13:35

God rest ye merry, gentlemen;
Let nothing you dismay
.
Remember Christ, our Savior
,
Was born on Christmas day
,
To save us all from Satan’s pow’r
When we were gone astray
.
O tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy!
O tidings of comfort and joy!

S
urprisingly, there are no “merry gentlemen” in this Christmas carol—unless we count the fellows doing the singing! All being well, the gentlemen referred to would have been in nightshirts and nightcaps and sound asleep. The comma between “merry” and “gentlemen” suggests it’s their rest that should be merry, not the gentlemen!

The authors of this song of redemption are unknown, but tradition has it they were watchmen, paid extra by the local burghers to guard the town over the Christmas period. Their job usually would have involved patrolling the nighttime streets with a lamp. They would announce the time on the hour, following that with a reassuring “And all’s well!” At some point though, perhaps overcome by the Christmas spirit, they seem to have started singing!

Reminding their cozy patrons that they were saved through Christ, the watchmen also encouraged those listening to love each other in Christian brotherhood. All hearing their song should entrust their night’s rest to God, and the knowledge of Satan’s inevitable defeat should be enough to make that rest a merry one.

Surprisingly in such a happy song, Satan is mentioned twice, but the presence of his name does nothing to lessen the overwhelming “tidings of comfort and joy!”

The tune may have been brought to the English West Country by French merchants, but the lyrics were born on the streets of an unknown English town in the fifteenth century. The publication, in 1833, of
Christmas Carols Ancient and Modern
brought them to a wider audience.

In taking the news of Christ’s birth out into the frosty street with a joyful song, those unknown believers may well have been the world’s first Christmas carolers. If the watchmen could have foreseen how popular caroling would become, they probably would have been very merry gentlemen indeed!

Sing unto him, sing psalms unto him, talk ye of all his wondrous works
.

1 C
HRONICLES
16:9

Still, still, still
One can hear the falling snow
.
For all is hushed
,
The world is sleeping
,
Holy Star its vigil keeping
.
Still, still, still
,
One can hear the falling snow
.

S
till, Still, Still” is one of the most relaxing Christmas carols. Lacking the traditional verse and chorus format, it repeats the first word of each verse three times in a gently hypnotic fashion. The melody rises and falls like soft breathing, so it’s no great wonder that “Still, Still, Still” was often used as a lullaby to soothe children to sleep.

As with many traditional songs, its origins are lost in time—and it is even difficult to find a definitive version of the lyrics. It was first sung in Austrian villages prior to 1819, and it spread by word of mouth with mothers and fathers singing it to their children as they remembered it, adapting it here and there.

By 1819 the lyrics had become attached to “The Salzburg Melody,” and written copies were circulated. Variations in the words still persisted, but the differences really made no difference. The themes of rest, comfort, and reassurance shine through regardless of which version is sung. The song, seemingly sung by a mother to her child, might just as easily have been crooned by a loving God to a fretful humankind.