Silent Night (5 page)

L
UKE
2:40

Go, tell it on the mountain
,
Over the hills and everywhere;
Go, tell it on the mountain
That Jesus Christ is born!

I
f any one group could identify with the suffering of the Jewish people during their time of exile, it would be the people taken from Africa and sold into generations of slavery. It’s little wonder that, lacking any other support, those slaves, in the fields and homes of their owners, turned to God for love and redemption.

A rich tradition of gospel songs sprang from the fertile ground of their suffering, but theirs was not a lifestyle that allowed for the writing of music or the copying down of songs. Who knows how many praise-filled melodies came and were lost for the lack of a pen and an interested listener?

In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, John Wesley Work tried to remedy the situation. Graduating in 1895 from Fisk (at the time a university predominantly dedicated to the education of freed slaves and their children), Work went on to head the school’s Latin and history departments.

While teaching there he became interested in collecting and promoting Negro spirituals. He and his brother Jerome published a collection called
New Jubilee Songs as Sung by the Fisk Jubilee Singers
in 1901. This was followed six years later by
Folk Songs of the American Negro
, which included “Go, Tell It on the Mountain.”

Lacking Bibles, the dispossessed traditionally tended to rely on rhythmic songs, easy to sing while working and containing messages powerful enough to get them to the end of the day. “Go, Tell It on the Mountain” is a simple recounting of the Nativity story with the star, shepherds, manger, and Baby—and it ends with the assurance of salvation.

The chorus reminds the listener that this is a message worth singing not just in the fields and valleys but from the tops of the highest mountains.

The slaves told the story in song, and John Wesley Work heard it. He told us. Now whom can we tell?

The word which God sent unto the children of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ: (he is Lord of all)
.

A
CTS
10:36

Angels we have heard on high
,
Sweetly singing o’er the plains
,
And the mountains in reply
,
Echoing their joyous strains
.
Gloria, in excelsis Deo!
Gloria, in excelsis Deo!

A
ngels We Have Heard on High” was originally the traditional French tune “Les
Angeles dans Nos Campagnes
,” which translates as “Angels in Our Countryside.” The angels in question weren’t in any European countryside, though—they were in the hills around Bethlehem, telling the shepherds the good news.

Legend has it that the French shepherds took this part of Luke’s Gospel to heart, and they would sing the Nativity story on the hills around Christmastime. Perhaps it was purely for the joy of worship, or perhaps it was simply a way of letting the shepherds on the other side of the valley or on neighboring hills know they were not alone. These were, of course, the days before cell phones! The song they sang is reputed to have evolved into “Les Angeles dans Nos Campagnes.”

It’s a simple but joyful telling of that angelic visit on the night of the Savior’s birth. The hills resound with the angels’ chorus; then the shepherds sing it to the world. When others ask them what all the noise is about, they reply, “Come to Bethlehem and see!”

In 1862 four years before he became bishop of Hexham and Newcastle in England, James Chadwick translated the traditional French carol into “Angels We Have Heard on High.” It first appeared in print in Holy Family Hymns. The tune we know came later, adapted by American Edwin Shippen Barnes, who studied music in France and may have heard the original version there.

Just as God didn’t hesitate to become man, so humankind shouldn’t hesitate to sing the songs of praise the angels sang. When it comes to “Gloria, in excelsis deo” (or “Glory to God in the highest”), you don’t need wings to sing. You just need what those French shepherds must have had—a good strong pair of lungs.

And when they had seen it, they made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this child. And all they that heard it wondered at those things which were told them by the shepherds
.

L
UKE
2:17–18

There’s a song in the air;
There’s a star in the sky
.
There’s a mother’s deep prayer
And a Baby’s low cry
.
And the star rains its fire
While the beautiful sing
,
For the manger of Bethlehem
Cradles a King!

M
ost translations of the Bible say the angels
spoke
praises to the Lord while the shepherds stood listening in fear and awe. But the image of a heavenly choir
singing
as Jesus is born persists. Why? Perhaps it’s because such wonderful news inspires the human heart to something more exuberant than speaking.

Think about it. The Creator of all things came down to be among us, and He wasn’t angry with us—He had come to love and save us! If the angels
weren’t
singing, it might be because they had never been lost; they had never needed saving. Humanity, on the other hand, would have felt the loss more keenly and celebrated salvation more rapturously.

Josiah G. Holland sticks with the tradition of the song from on high in his poem “There’s a Song in the Air,” first published in his book
The Marble Prophecy and Other Poems
in 1872. A doctor, teacher, novelist, poet, journalist, and editor, Holland was a friend of Emily Dickinson and wrote a well-received biography of President Lincoln.

A glance through
The Marble Prophecy
shows that faith loomed large in Holland’s life. Indeed, he followed the Methodist tradition, as did Karl Harrington, who, two years after Holland died, took the words of his poem “There’s a Song in the Air” and put them to music.

The angelic serenade may be the starting point to this beautiful Christmas carol, but then Holland describes how the song sweeps around the world and still blazes in the hearth of each Christian home. Angels didn’t do that. People, walking with the Holy Spirit and with hearts full of joy at their redemption, did.

The angels may or may not have sung the first “Gloria in excelsis” on that holy night. But, as Holland points out in the last stanza of “There’s a Song in the Air,” the children of the Lord have been singing it back to them ever since.

Sing unto the L
ORD
, all the earth; shew forth from day to day his salvation
.

1 C
HRONICLES
16:23

Thou didst leave Thy throne
and Thy kingly crown
When Thou camest to earth for me;
But in Bethlehem’s home
there was found no room
For Thy holy nativity
.
O come to my heart, Lord Jesus;
There is room in my heart for Thee
.

E
mily Elliott (1836–1897) surely would have had plenty of encouragement with her early hymn writing ventures. After all, she had an uncle and two aunts who both wrote hymns, and her father was rector of an Anglican church in Brighton, England.

Still, it would take passionate faith instead of simple encouragement to produce, as she did, 140 hymns in her lifetime.

Elliott’s passion for the Lord was obvious and bent to a purpose—the purpose of helping the poor and the dispossessed. Her life was spent in rescue missions and benevolent associations. Her care for the infirm is shown in a book of verse,
Under the Pillow
, which she wrote exclusively to comfort those who were bedridden.

Elliot was also very involved with the relatively new Sunday school movement, providing literacy skills, religious education, and, in many cases, food and clothing to children in major industrial centers.

It was for some of these children that Elliott wrote “Thou Didst Leave Thy Throne,” based on Luke’s Gospel. Despite publishing several books and no doubt earning an income from them, Elliot had “Thou Didst Leave Thy Throne” published privately for the children at the Sunday school of her father’s church. It was an attempt to show, in simple terms, the extent of the sacrifice that was Christ’s life.

Elliot’s hymn left the children in no doubt that Christ wasn’t angry, in spite of having visited humanity and been repaid with scorn and a crown of thorns. Indeed, there would come a day when He would call out to each of them and invite them to come stand by His side. For the hungry, ill-educated, and short-lived children of the Industrial Revolution that must have been a wondrous invitation.

Of course, others thought so, too, and the hymn didn’t long remain exclusively with her father’s church. An invitation like that was meant to travel the world, and here’s the good news—it still stands!

In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you
.

J
OHN
14:2

He is born, the divine Christ child
.
Play on the oboe and bagpipes merrily
.
He is born, the divine Christ child
.
Sing we all of the Saviour’s birth
.
Through long ages of the past
,
Prophets have foretold his coming;
Through long ages of the past
,
Now the time has come at last
.

S
ome carols are hard to pin down, and that is part of their charm! Once upon a time there was a popular “hunting tune” in the region of Normandy. It was already an old composition when it first appeared in print in 1862. To that tune some unknown wordsmith added the lyrics to “
Il Est Ne, Le Divin Enfant
,” and the completed carol made its debut in
Noêls Anciens
fourteen years later.

However, there are many versions of the lyrics, and without an author’s signature, none of them can be proven to be the original.

In one version the birth of Christ is celebrated with oboes and bagpipes. In another the instruments are the oboe and the musette. “Gaily resounding pipe and drum” accompany the Nativity in a third version, and a fourth has the oboe vying with the bagpipes for the honor of proclaiming the birth.

The time we have waited for this momentous event might be “long ages of the past” or “four thousand years.”

Some versions mention the manger, the shepherds, and the star, while others focus more on what His blessed birth means to the world.

The hymn is sung at different tempos and with varying lyrics all across the world. There is even rumored to be a Native American version sung by the Mohawk people.

The heart of the hymn, whether it is “Il Est Ne, Le Divin Enfant,” or “He Is Born, the Divine Christ Child,” or (in Mohawk) “
Rotonni Niio Roienha
,” remains one of rejoicing that Christ was born for us.

This tremendous variety wrapped around the same essential message reflects well the people who sing it. Human beings come in a variety of shapes and sizes, using many different languages, but the central theme running through all those hearts is one of yearning for God.

So grab your bagpipes, oboes, pipes, drums, or whatever your instrument of choice is, and make a joyous noise because that divine Christ child—He is born for everyone!

Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord
.

E
PHESIANS
5:19

Come, children, and peep, but hush ye, and creep on tiptoe to whre the Babe lies; then whisper His name
.

G. A. S
UDDERT
K
ENNEDY

What Child is this who, laid to rest
,
On Mary’s lap is sleeping?
Whom angels greet with anthems sweet
,
While shepherds watch are keeping?
This, this is Christ, the King
,
Whom shepherds guard and angels sing
.
Haste, haste to bring Him laud
,
The Babe, the Son of Mary
.

W
illiam Chatterton Dix wasn’t having a good time. Twenty-nine and far from home, he’d been seriously ill for months. His position as a Glasgow maritime insurance clerk must have been in jeopardy. He had every right to be depressed—and he was!

Even so, he kept his mind on better things. While confined to bed, Dix wrote several poems that would become hymns we still sing a century and a half later.

“What Child Is This?” was composed in 1865 and appeared in
Christmas Carols New and Old
six years later. By then it had been associated with the tune “Greensleeves.”

The carol begins with a question, but there is no uncertainty in Dix’s answer. “This, this,” he repeats, “is Christ the King”—and we should rush to praise him.

Why? Well, the illustration on the sheet music from
Christmas Carols New and Old
tells what that child would go through. In a simple pen and ink sketch we see Mary and Joseph watching over their new baby. Beneath the sketch, we see what awaits their beloved son: the scourge, the spear, the sponge of vinegar, the crown of thorns, and the nails.

But Dix’s words take the story further. The child’s humble beginnings do not lead only to a mean and miserable death. This baby, laid in a manger, would be the King of salvation for everyone. He would go from the cross to rule in the hearts of peasants and kings alike. He would reign in heaven—and invite us in!