Silent Night

Silent Night

Thursday, Dec 19, 2013, J G White

10:30 am, Dykeland Lodge, Windsor

7:30 pm,St. Louise Church, Ellershouse

Coming into a church among the trees of Ellershouse is a lovely thing on a snowy evening.  Singing familiar carols and warming our hearts towards Christmas is a joy for many people in this season.  Tonight we sing ‘Silent Night.’

A few legends surround this carol, like the one of the organ breaking down at a little Austrian church, and the priest and organist composing ‘Silent Night’ to be accompanied by guitar at the upcoming Midnight Mass.  

Well, that might not be history, but it makes for a beloved story.  The tradition of this carol on Christmas Eve remains strong, in Austria, and here in Canada.  Go back to a Church where I used to worship on Christmas Eve each year, dig out the old hymnbooks that used to be in the pews, and turn to # 48.  On most of those pages you will see there red splotches of wax, dripped on successive Christmas Eves from the candles of those singing Silent Night at the close of the service.

The young priest, Josef Mohr, did write the words - six verses, not just three - in 1816, at age 24.  The organist of St. Nicholas Church, Oberndorf, Franz Gruber, who was also a local schoolteacher, composed the music - for the guitar - two years later.  It was first sung at Christmas Eve mass in Oberndorf, 1818.  

As ‘Amazing Grace’ is perhaps the best known and loved hymn in the world, ‘Silent Night’ may be the world’s favourite Christmas carol.  Like Amazing Grace, it speaks of the amazing salvation God offers us, even today.  

My German is quite rusty, but let me use an English translation of the six verses to walk through it, from the New Oxford Book of Carols.

The first stanza speaks, like our usual translation, of the silent, peaceful mother and child.  Sleep in heavenly peace! Sleep in heavenly peace!

The second stanza in German is the basis of our third verse, in the 1859 English translation we almost always hear, by Episcopal Bishop John Young.  It’s a verse about light beaming in the darkness.  I think of the Bible verse that talks of the life that Jesus give to us: it is the light: The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. (John 1:5)

The third stanza celebrates Christ coming into humanity from God.  
Silent night! Holy Night!

From the heaven’s golden height

Christ descends, the earth to free;

Grace divine! by thee we see

God in human form!

This Jesus is about bringing freedom to us.  It happens because God joins us, lovingly, beautifully.  The fourth verse says,  God above at that sight

Doth with fatherly love rejoice,

While earth’s peoples, with one voice,

Jesus their brother proclaim!

I like this.  Christmas is something we are doing together, with humanity and with God.  God rejoices; we have one voice of praise; we find Jesus to be our Brother, kind and good. 
The fifth verse in Josef Mohr’s original speaks of what salvation and freedom is about.

Silent night!  Holy night!

Adam’s sin damned us quite,

But the Son, to set us free

From the Father’s stern decree,

Now in mercy is born!

Now in mercy is born!

The traditional, biblical theology of God’s wrath and mercy are portrayed in these lost verses.  Lost to us who sing in English, anyway.  The birth of Jesus is God’s mercy, when we had gone astray and were unworthy.  As a Bible verse puts it, All we like sheep have gone astray; we have all turned to our own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.  (Is 53:6) On this Jesus our wrong is placed, this Jesus who is born to die.  

Josef Mohr’s sixth and final verse is the basis of the second one we sing in English, about the shepherds receiving the glorious angelic message about Jesus.  Heavenly hosts sing Alleluia.  Alleluia is, of course an ancient word of praise and rejoicing.  This beloved carol, with Franz Gruber’s peaceful music, sings an Alleluia so calm and deep that it surpasses many others, even Leonard Cohen’s popular ‘Hallelujah.’  

In all the carols we sing of the Saviour, may we hear God speaking, and may we be speaking of the Saviour to others.  Sing alleluia!  Christ the Saviour is born!

Jesus, Lord at Thy birth!

AMEN.