Silent Night

Elder David Eldredge
December 24, 2023
Christmas Eve Service

So when I was asked to do this tonight, I really did not know what I would speak on  that would be different than what we've heard  year after year at Christmas.  I did come across a sermon that was given by a Richard Jumper  that really struck me.  So I do give him credit for some of the content of this message. It kind of inspired the message for this evening.  The message is going to focus around Silent Night, Holy Night. Is peace possible at Christmas?  I wonder if it was really peaceful on the first Christmas.  Silent Night,  Holy Night.  All is calm,  all is bright.  Round, young virgin, mother and child.  Holy infant, so So tender and mild  sleep in heavenly peace whenever Christmas carols were sung, this him is sure to be among them  for me, for as far back as I can remember,  every Christmas Eve service, my father played silent night on his guitar. Has everyone lit their candles?  Then everyone would join in and sing.  So for me, Silent Night is a must in the songs to be sung.  I'm sure for many of you,  it just doesn't seem like Christmas Eve  until we sing Silent Night.  One of the many legends about the origin of this Christmas carol has it being created out of a catastrophe. The folktale has it that it was Christmas Eve in the snowy hills of Austria.  When the assistant minister named Joseph Moore of a small church nearing Salzburg, near Salzburg, discovered  that his church organ had broken down.  Without the organ, how would the choir sing its special anthems?  How would the congregation be able to sing their favorite carols? 

The Christmas Eve service would be a disaster without music.  More turned for help to his choir master and organist, Franz Gruber.  Together, with More creating words and Gruber composing the lovely music,  they created a special song for Christmas Eve that could be played on a guitar.  The choir taught the song to the congregation  and a Christmas tradition was born. One of the reasons this hymn is so loved is because it pictures a perfect Christmas.  The kind of Christmas we all say we want,  but often never get.  Let's think about it.  What would be the perfect Christmas?  Perfectly behaved children?  Disaster proof meals?  Which clean themselves up? Laughter.  Piles of fresh white snow,  no delays in travel,  gifts unwrapped in an orderly and neat fashion,  and church services filled with favorite carols and a very short, meaningful sermon. Sounds ideal, doesn't it?  Well, we all know the reality of Christmas is often far from ideal.  Does this sound more like your Christmas?  Children get cranky.  Dishes pile up.  Part D doesn't seem to fit into slot A the way it's shown in the instructions.  The soloist for Christmas Eve service comes down with laryngitis. Cancelled flights keep family from coming home for Christmas.  Sound more familiar?  Silent night.  Holy night.  All is calm.  All is bright.  Reading the birth narrative in Luke's gospel makes me wonder  if this hymn really does describe that first Christmas Eve.  Caesar Augustus had declared that everyone must return to their hometown for a census of the empire. Ahem. Can you imagine the disruption that caused?  Picture how crowded the highways, railroads, and airports would be if such a requirement had been placed on our recent census.  Paintings and movies often show Mary and Joseph traveling to Bethlehem through an empty wilderness.  It was probably more like 41 on Friday night of rush hour. Or any time during EAA week.  The route from Nazareth to Bethlehem would have been jammed with travelers.  Can you imagine how difficult it would have been for a nine month pregnant woman in that crowd?  When they finally reached Bethlehem, Joseph and Mary would have found it packed with early arrivals. 

Families would have arrived with children and servants.  Not everyone could fit in the available rooms.  Courtyards would be bustling with fires and cooks,  as well as people trying to sleep.  Peace and quiet would be the last thing one would find in Bethlehem that night. And  I stopped and was thinking about that, and I remember back  quite a few years ago,  Carl was  younger,  before he was married, and we decided to take a trip to Cooperstown,  and surprise Carl by going to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Well, Cindy and I were also young, so we were like, Oh, let's just go.  We'll find a hotel when we get there.  Well, we got there  not realizing  it was in Watkins Glen.  They were having car races that weekend.  There wasn't a hotel to be found.  Every hotel we, we tried to check into, they said, Oh, you're not going to find a room within 100 miles of here. So we just kept looking, kept pulling into hotels. We finally pulled into one and they said, Oh yeah, we have one room, one.  I said, I'll take it.  Well, let me just tell you,  without the gory details,  it was less than desirable.  Through Cindy's tears, I just told her, just go to sleep. We'll leave as soon as we wake up. And I think  when Mary and Joseph went,  there was no place.  And that stable  was probably pretty undesirable,  kind of like the room that we stayed in.  Stables were filled with the caravan of animals, of all the travelers, The space available for the young couple expecting their first child would have been limited. And once Mary went into labor,  calm and peace would completely disappear.  Since men rarely helped with such events, Joseph probably got one of the older servant women from the inn's courtyard to assist Mary.  She would not have come alone, but brought other women with her.  First, there'd be Mary's birth and cries,  then a newborn's cry,  and finally the songs of women celebrating a successful birth would have broken through whatever peace  and quiet existed in Bethlehem that evening. 

According to custom, the baby would have been washed, rubbed with salt, and then wrapped tightly, like a mummy, with long strips of cloth.  The manger he was placed in would have been a rough hewn ledge of stone, perhaps softened a little bit by hay and grain.  Joseph would have been waiting at the courtyard fire with the other men for news of the successful birth. There would have been much celebrating and shouts of congratulations to Joseph on the birth of a firstborn son.  There would have been little rest for either Mary or Joseph. of or baby Jesus that evening,  silent night,  holy night,  shepherds quake at the site  in the fields outside of Bethlehem.  It would have been a comfortable night. The shepherds were guarding their flocks left down the open countryside  as they gathered around an open fire,  some talking to stay awake,  others trying to sleep.  They would have heard not far off the sounds of sheep rustling and calling occasionally in the night.  The streams of travelers heading for Bethlehem would have finally trickled to a halt. Without warning, whatever quiet and rest that these shepherds were enjoying would have been shattered  by the appearance of an angel of God.  Its appearance was terrifying. Brilliant light surrounded by the glory of God.  Strange and overwhelming.  The shepherds would have cowered as their flocks scattered across the countryside in fear. What was I saying before about peaceful?  So much for peaceful here.  Add an angelic choir into this mix singing praises to God on high.  Rather than running after their frightened flocks,  these shepherds hurried to the overcrowded village of Bethlehem  Since that  is what the angel instructed them to do. After much searching, they found the newborn and his family cramped in a packed stable,  surrounded by women and men, celebrating his birth.  The shepherds added to the confusion,  sharing the good news the angel had told them concerning this child.  That news is found in Luke 2. 

I'm going to share with you Luke 2, verses 10 and 11.  And the angel said to them, Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.  For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.  All who heard it were amazed,  not just by the message. But the God had chosen these shepherds  to be the bearers of such a message.  After a period of celebration, the shepherds returned to the fields as energetically as they first came.  Silent night,  holy night.  Son of God  loves pure light.  Radiant beams from your holy face  with the dawn of redeeming grace. Jesus,  Lord, at your birth,  we all want a perfect Christmas.  We rarely get it.  Not even that first Christmas was perfect.  The good news is Christmas doesn't need to be perfect  to be Christmas.  God doesn't wait for perfection to shower us with his grace and love.  God's Son. loves pure light comes regardless of and in the midst of our catastrophes,  our squabbles, our confusion  and our everyday life. Children cry through the candlelight service.  A new baby,  a newborn baby fussed and cried in a cold manger.  Tempers get short.  Side dishes get burnt.  Carefully decorated homes look like disaster areas after a morning of unwrapping gifts.  Bethlehem was overcrowded.  A baby will be born regardless of the housing conditions. Shepherds leave their flocks defenseless  and search through the confusion for a newborn.  We seek the special,  the peaceful.  and the calmly prepared moments to look for God.  God instead comes to us in the ordinary distractions of life, the busyness,  the moments of tension, and in the midst of our problems and mistakes  and brings us peace. 

There is another story involving the hymn Silent Night.  It is said that during World War One, On a battlefield somewhere in Europe on Christmas Eve,  during a lull in the battle,  someone in one of the trenches began in a clear tenor voice to sing Silent Night.  The soldiers on the English side paused to breathe and to listen to this grace filled hymn. How far from a perfect world they were that night.  How far from a joy filled and perfect Christmas.  These trenches were  quietly  over the tattered land, the barbed wire fences and the cold winter ground  came a distant bass voice echoing back to him.  Only this time the words that were sung back were steely knock,  which is German for silent night. God comes regardless of our circumstances.  And only through that coming can we have peace. May the Prince of Peace enter your hearts and your homes this Christmas,  bringing you the gift of love and grace.  Amen.

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