Silent Night (Luke 2)
by John Frye
In the early days of my ministry I directed a children’s choir in the small southern town of Eden, North Carolina. One year at Christmas, we presented a musical about Silent Night and in the process I learned some interesting facts about its origin.
It was 1818 in Oberndorf, Austria. The organ at St. Nicholas Church had fallen into disrepair and could not be fixed in time for the Christmas Eve service. Pastor Mohr, having remembered a poem that he had written two years prior, took the lyrics to organist, Franz Gruber, who set them to music just hours before the new composition was heard for the first time. That evening the congregation heard, “Stille Nacht,” sung by Gruber and Mohr accompanied by Gruber’s guitar.
“Sleep in heavenly peace,” in verse one seems like a lovely lullaby sung to the newborn Christ child. The middle stanza recounts the angelic announcement to frightened shepherds, saying that the “Savior is born.” Rich with theology, the final stanza proclaims that the birth of Jesus, God’s own Son, was the “dawn of redeeming grace.” With the humble birth of Jesus, God’s redemptive plan was set in motion to save all peoples of all times. Today, Silent Night has been translated in more than 300 languages and is still sung world-wide!
Additional Resources
Read The Story Behind the Carol: Silent Night
Read the words to Silent Night - Try rewriting them in your own words. If you really want a challenge - make it rhyme!
Sing Silent Night using Sign Language
Listen to Somewhere In Your Silent Night
