ADD-vent 2019: Silent Night?
By Seth Bollinger
For many of us, the Christmas season seems to be anything but a silent endeavor. The hustle and bustle of the holidays tends to consist of last-minute shopping trips, frantic gift wrapping, and preparing homes and meals for visiting relatives. My family knows this all too well; growing up with three sisters and a farm to care for, my Christmas season was usually filled with hurry and worry. In the midst of the holiday hustle, I’ve always found comfort in the peace of traditional Christmas carols, with the words describing Christ’s birth always reminding me of the real reason for the season.
One of the most popular Christmas carols that exemplifies this calmness is “Silent Night” or “Stille Nacht.” Composed by Franz Gruber on the Christmas Eve of 1818, “Stille Nacht” has been part of Austrian heritage ever since. Joseph Mohr, a pastor who penned the words to the song, visited Gruber hours before the Christmas Eve mass desperate for a carol to be sung at the service. In the few hours of composing, Gruber and Mohr came up with a powerful carol that was modified slightly by a choir in 1832. Today, Silent Night is sung in 140 languages around the world. (1)
The lyrics of “Silent Night” surround the night of Christ’s birth, an environment where “all is calm, all is bright.” A curious aspect of this carol is the insistence of an idyllic setting for Christ’s birth, perhaps equating the savior’s divinity with a divine space for birth. Historically, though, the Nativity story is a hectic tale filled with tense family dynamics, long hours of traveling, and the small city of Bethlehem swarmed with people for a Roman census. This busy setting left Jesus’ parents without proper lodging, and Jesus, the Son of God, was born in a stable. Does this hectic setting make “Silent Night” irrelevant—or worse, false? Perhaps the lyrics to this familiar carol are not meant to be a perfect picture of the nativity story, but rather a picture of peace during the chaos of Christmas.
On Christmas day, 1914, among the trenches of the Western Front during World War I, the unexpected happened. In the midst of battle, soldiers demonstrated the peace seen in “Silent Night” through an event known as The Christmas Truce. German soldiers and British soldiers both ceased fire and joined together in a chorus of “Silent Night” or “Stille Nacht.” During the singing, soldiers began to emerge from either side and met in the middle of No Man’s Land, shaking hands and conversing. In some instances, they even played pickup soccer games. (2) Although the war started again after 24 hours, this instance of peace in a heavily chaotic and tragic time gives us insights into how “Silent Night,” and Christmas carols in general, can offer us a metaphorical “truce” during the holiday season.
In the days leading up to Christmas, let the words of Silent Night permeate the strenuous planning and preparation. Christ, after all, was prophesied as the Prince of Peace, who takes away our fears and burdens. (3) Christmas carols such as “Silent Night” may not need to be historically accurate or have a new contemporized arrangement; perhaps instead they can serve as a reminder to slow down and reflect on who Christ is and how He has offered His heavenly peace to us all.
SOURCES
1.) www.german-way.com/history-and-culture/holidays-and-celebrations/christmas/stille-nacht-silent-night/.
2.) www.history.com/news/world-war-is-christmas-truce-100-years-ago.
3.) Isaiah 9:6 (ESV)