Silent Night, Holy Night
Isaiah 9:2-4, 2-7 Titus 2:11-14 Luke 2:1-14 (15-20)
“Silent night, holy night. All is calm, all is bright.” So begins one of our most cherished Christmas carols—one which draws from us powerful emotions and inner peace.
“Jesus, Lord at thy birth, Jesus, Lord at thy birth.” Thus ends that same carol, describing a holy moment, a hushed moment. The Nativity.
Those of us who have witnessed the birth of a healthy child have experienced that amazing shift from anxiety to relief, from expectation to joy and awe. The travail is past, and with the arrival of new life, hope blooms. Those present at such a blessed event are bathed in love and a sense of the miraculous.
So it is no mystery that Luke chose to relate for posterity that most wondrous of nativities. Nor, likewise, is it any mystery that the composers of much-loved Christmas carols emphasize that transcendent stillness and calm. No din of battle or raucous cries blaspheme the supreme moment—the birth of Christ our Savior.
And yet . . . let us rewind a bit. Luke tells us next to nothing about what led up to that birth. We know only that Joseph and Mary must travel to his ancestral town to be enrolled for the Roman census and that when they arrive in Bethlehem, there is no room for them at the inn.
Imagine for a moment . . . Mary at full-term of her pregnancy endures the more than seventy-mile trip from Nazareth atop the spiny back of a pack animal. With every lurch and jolt, pain radiates through her lower back. How protectively, she cradles her swollen abdomen. For a woman of that time, or any time, the prospect of giving birth among strangers in an unfamiliar place must seem terrifying.
Mary knows God has chosen her, and she has said “yes” to him. Despite her discomfort, she trusts in him. Yet what he asks of her is very difficult. She has never given birth, and certainly has never anticipated doing so without benefit of the skill and comfort of her kin in Nazareth. Exhausted, Mary hasn’t yet told Joseph she is experiencing contractions.
And what about Joseph? As a descendant of David, he has no choice but to obey the Roman edict and return to Bethlehem. But the timing couldn’t be worse. No doubt masking his own fear, he tries to reassure Mary and to break the trip into shorter segments so she can rest. Perhaps because of such delays, they arrive in a Bethlehem already teeming with others coming to be enrolled.
Joseph is frantic—there is no place for them to stay. And from Mary’s pale face and the way she bites her lip, he knows her time is near. He is the man, the head of the household. Somehow he needs to make things right.
The crowded town is noisy, and Mary and Joseph are jostled in the street by the crush of people as they search in vain for lodging. Finally, a sympathetic innkeeper offers them a manger.
A manger? Located in a cave and full of dirty hay and smelly animals. Joseph looks at Mary, defeat written in his expression. What choice do they have? Mary, weary to the bone, paroxysms of pain washing over her, sinks onto that scratchy bed of straw. A sheep bleats. A cow bawls.
“Silent night?” Certainly not at that moment. In the throes of labor, Mary cries out. Joseph nudges aside a curious donkey as he prepares for the birth. A thread of panic runs through him. What does he know about delivering a baby? In his culture, that is the work of women.
“All is calm, all is bright?” Not yet. Joseph, fearful of his own ineptitude and worried about Mary, feels helpless. Mary, experiencing tidal waves of contractions, longs for the soothing presence of a female relative—longs for it all to be over.
Then the moment comes and there is no holding back. Instinctively the animals settle, and Joseph, guided by the hand of God, knows exactly how to proceed. Delivered of her burden, Mary hears for the first time the lusty cry of her tiny baby. She is spent, but exultant.
Fighting back tears, Joseph tenderly lays the blessed infant in Mary’s eager arms. She strokes her son’s dark, silky hair, studies his dimpled hands and rosy cheeks. She counts his fingers and toes and only then wraps him in the swaddling cloths she has brought with her from home.
Now, at last, “all is calm.” In the heavens a brilliant star heralds the birth of the Prince of Peace. And “all is bright.”
That moment of Christ’s birth, where wonder, joy, and peace abide, is the point of our connection to the story. Our lives are so often in turmoil and disarray. We long for a release from stress and pain. We yearn for such joy and peace.
Like Joseph and Mary, our destination may be unclear; the road, bumpy. It may seem as if there is no room at the inn, no place where we belong. Uncertainty and hopelessness wrack us. The world seems cold and indifferent. We don’t know what is expected of us, where to turn.
And so we run frantically from place to place; we over-medicate with alcohol and drugs; and by our constant busyness, we hold truth at bay. Few of us would describe our daily lives as “calm and bright.”
Until . . . we experience the Nativity. The birth that occurs within each one of us.
Whether or not we accept Luke’s account of Christ’s birth literally is by no means the central issue. The Nativity occurs again —and again—at the moment we open our hearts to Christ. Then, even the most hardened of us, can experience that holy night when “all is calm, all is bright,” the night when the incarnate God offers us the “peace which passes all understanding.”
In his book God Is Not in the Thesaurus, Bo Don Cox, who, at the time, was serving a life sentence for murder, recalls a Christmas in prison. One Christmas night, lonely and terrified, he was persuaded to attend a twelve-step meeting of alcoholics and addicts. At the conclusion of the meeting, Cox describes the following scene:
As the meeting came to a close, a man named Moses asked if we’d all care to join hands, turn off the lights, and sing a song. Hesitantly, the words to “Silent Night” began to fill the dark prison chow hall. In an instant, the song took on a life of its own. It came alive. A bunch of ex-drunks, ex-junkies, thieves, murderers, and rapists—society’s outcasts—were singing like their lives depended upon it. And they did. Suddenly, I felt a presence in the room. Someone, or something, was in the room with us, and it was powerful. Warmth flowed from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet. As the tears rolled down my cheeks, I knew I’d just met God and he’d shown me what Christmas was all about. As the song ended and the lights came back on, I looked around the room at all the red eyes and glowing faces, and I knew that they knew. I wasn’t afraid any more.That same phenomenon experienced by Cox is eloquently expressed in the words of “O Little Town of Bethlehem”:
[Cox, p. 58]
How silently, how silently, the wondrous gift is given!No matter where we are in life—how hurt, how sinful, how arrogant, how lost—God waits in this “silent night” to give His gift of calm, brightness, and peace. May we, this “holy night,” make of our hearts a cradle to welcome the newborn King.
So God imparts to human hearts the blessing of his heaven.
No ear may hear his coming, but in this world of sin,
where meek souls will receive him, still the dear Christ enters in.
[#78, 1982 Hymnal]
Amen
Laura Shoffner
December 24, 2006