Silent Night

On Christmas Eve, 1952, President Harry S. Truman said of Christmas,

"Year after year it brings peace and tranquility to troubled hearts in a troubled world. And tonight the world seems hushed, as we turn to the old, old story of how 'God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life'."

Indeed there is a hushed silence that settles upon the world each year on the eve of the Holy day of Christmas.

Be informed.

More than 2 billion Christians embrace it. Most people are at least aware of it.

In fact, Gallup reported yesterday that 93% of Americans told them they are celebrating Christmas this year.

Gallup says that number has remained pretty consistent over the past 25 years. And they said,

"Near universal observance of Christmas is seen across all gender, age, educational and income subgroups of Americans with more that 9 in 10 in each saying they celebrate, and the holiday is also a unifying event for Republicans and Democrats."

Even 85% of people who claim religion is not important to them celebrate Christmas.

Among those who say religion is important or very important; 96% celebrate Christmas.

After the frenzy that's gone on before this night, as evening comes, a Christmas Eve hush starts to descend---an air of stillness grows around us.

It was at this hushed moment that the most sung Christmas carol of all time was written.

Silent Night is the most sung Christmas carol in history.

Here's the story behind the carol as told by members of the church where the carol was first sung:

In 1818, a roving band of actors was performing in towns throughout the Austrian Alps. On December 23 they arrived at Oberndorf, a village near Salzburg where they were to re-enact the story of Christ's birth in the small Church of St. Nicholas.

Unfortunately, the St. Nicholas' church organ wasn't working and would not be repaired before Christmas. (Note: some versions of the story point to mice as the problem; others say rust was the culprit) Because the church organ was out of commission, the actors presented their Christmas drama in a private home. That Christmas presentation of the events in the first chapters of Matthew and Luke put assistant pastor Josef Mohr in a meditative mood. Instead of walking straight to his house that night, Mohr took a longer way home. The longer path took him up over a hill overlooking the village.

From that hilltop, Mohr looked down on the peaceful snow-covered village. Reveling in the majestic silence of the wintry night, Mohr gazed down at the glowing Christmas-card like scene. His thoughts about the Christmas play he had just seen made him remember a poem he had written a couple of years before. That poem was about the night when angels announced the birth of the long-awaited Messiah to shepherds on a hillside.

Mohr decided those words might make a good carol for his congregation the following evening at their Christmas eve service. The one problem was that he didn't have any music to which that poem could be sung. So, the next day Mohr went to see the church organist, Franz Xaver Gruber. Gruber only had a few hours to come up with a melody that could be sung with a guitar. However, by that evening, Gruber had managed to compose a musical setting for the poem. It no longer mattered to Mohr and Gruber that their church organ was inoperable. They now had a Christmas carol that could be sung without that organ.

On Christmas Eve, the little Oberndorf congregation heard Gruber and Mohr sing their new composition to the accompaniment of Gruber's guitar.

Weeks later, well-known organ builder Karl Mauracher arrived in Oberndorf to fix the organ in St. Nicholas church. When Mauracher finished, he stepped back to let Gruber test the instrument. When Gruber sat down, his fingers began playing the simple melody he had written for Mohr's Christmas poem. Deeply impressed, Mauracher took copies of the music and words of "Silent Night" back to his own Alpine village, Kapfing. There, two well-known families of singers — the Rainers and the Strassers — heard it. Captivated by "Silent Night," both groups put the new song into their Christmas season repertoire.

The Strasser sisters spread the carol across northern Europe. In 1834, they performed "Silent Night" for King Frederick William IV of Prussia, and he then ordered his cathedral choir to sing it every Christmas eve.

Twenty years after "Silent Night" was written, the Rainers brought the song to the United States, singing it (in German) at the Alexander Hamilton Monument located outside New York City's Trinity Church.

In 1863, nearly fifty years after being first sung in German, "Silent Night" was translated into English (by either Jane Campbell or John Young). Eight years later, that English version made its way into print in Charles Hutchins' Sunday School Hymnal. Today the words of "Silent Night" are sung in more than 300 different languages around the world.

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I am taking a break this week between Christmas and New Year's Day. We will not be publishing this Faith and Freedom Daily article in the coming week. We will resume publication on Friday, January 3, 2020.

Have a blessed "Silent Night" and a very Merry Christmas.

And a blessed New Year.