Silent Night: The Story Behind the Carol

Have you seen those postcards of a quiet Christmas? The snow lies thick about a picturesque village. Warm light glows from the windows of several cottages, sprinkled about the bottom of rolling hills. You can almost hear the bells in the little chapel’s steeple ringing out in the crisp night air. The only sound for miles around. All is calm and peaceful.

Is Christmas ever like this for you? What with all the shopping, visiting schedules, noise, and general rushing around, often there’s not much time in the Christmas season for rest and quiet reflection.

The first Christmas wasn’t calm and peaceful either. According to the Gospel of Luke, the Roman emperor, Ceasar Augustus, had commanded everyone to go back to their hometown so his officials could register them for tax purposes. The small town of Bethlehem was rammed! And there the baby, Jesus, was born. Definitely not a peaceful, silent night for His young mother and her husband!

So how does a carol like Silent Night fit into Christmas?!

On Christmas Eve, 1818 Josephus Franciscus Mohr rambled through the winter countryside near his home in the village of Oberndorf bei Salzburg, Austria. He was on his way to visit his friend, Franz Xaver Gruber, in the town of Arnsdorf.

Mohr, a local priest, needed a carol for his midnight service… yep, he expected poor Gruber to help him create a brand new carol in just a few hours… on Christmas Eve! Joseph Mohr brought along a poem he’d written a few years before. Maybe Gruber could make something out of it? Also, the church organ had broken down. Could Gruber perhaps arrange the melody so it was easy for Mohr to strum on his guitar?

Amazingly, Gruber agreed to give up the rest of his day to write the music. He wrote the melody, they adapted Mohr’s poem and the carol “Stille Nacht” was born – created in less than a day.

The creation of Silent Night is the stuff of legend. But this seems to have been what actually happened.

As the carol became more famous, Mohr’s name was forgotten and most people assumed the Gruber must have based the song on a melody from a famous composer like Mozart, or Beethoven. In 1995 a manuscript was discovered written in Mohr’s handwriting and dated to roughly 1820. The details in this manuscript proved that Mohr wrote the words in 1816 and the music was composed by Gruber two years later.

Silent night, holy night!
All is calm, all is bright.
Round yon Virgin, Mother and Child.
Holy infant so tender and mild,
Sleep in heavenly peace,
Sleep in heavenly peace

The Bible claims that Jesus was a very special child. He had no earthly father for He is the Son of God, God the Son, both truly man and truly God all at once:

…’Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel’ (which means, God with us).

– The Gospel of Matthew, chapter 1, verse 23

That’s why this night was so special; the very One who made the stars and knows their names chose to humble Himself so completely that He came into this world as a weak and helpless baby.

But why did He come to earth like this? What was the point?

Silent night, holy night!
Shepherds quake at the sight.
Glories stream from heaven afar
Heavenly hosts sing Alleluia,
Christ the Saviour is born!
Christ the Saviour is born

The Gospel of Luke tells us the story of the Shepherds:

And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with fear. 

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 Saviour, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.”

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”

– The Gospel of Luke, chapter 2, verse 14

The story goes on to tell how the shepherds ended the night full of great joy because their Saviour had come. But what had this Saviour come to save them from?

Silent night, holy night!
Son of God, love’s pure light.
Radiant beams from Thy holy face
With the dawn of redeeming grace,
Jesus Lord, at Thy birth
Jesus Lord, at Thy birth

The Bible says that Jesus looked like a normal ordinary person – there wasn’t literal light streaming from His face. Yet, Jesus, Himself said that He was the light of the world. What did He mean?

This world is full of confusion and untruths – especially when it comes to what the Creator-God is like. The Bible calls this “darkness”. Jesus is God’s light because He is truth. Everything He did and everything He said shows us what God is actually like. In Jesus, we can see that while God is just, all-powerful and completely good, He is also love. His love is perfect. All other loves are a pale shadow, a faint echo of His.

How did He show that love? By being a redeemer. A redeemer is a person who pays the ransom to set another person free from a life of slavery.

Jesus said: “…everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin.” Sin is wrongdoing – wrongdoing by God’s definition, not yours or mine. Jesus says that we sin because we want to – we’re hooked on it and can’t break free. He warned that in the end sin leads to our destruction.

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 

Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgement: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.

– Jesus of Nazereth, The Gospel of John, chapter 3, verses 16-20

That’s why we all need a Saviour! That’s why the shepherd’s rejoiced. This is why Jesus came into this world as an ordinary-looking baby. It’s what was needed to complete the rescue mission He was on.

To some extent, Silent Night presents an idealised version of the first Christmas. The first Christmas wasn’t all that quiet! But, to be fair to Joseph Mohr, if we begin to grasp who this Jesus is and how much He gave up to come and be our Saviour it surely would leave us in hushed wonder and awe – silent apart from two little words, “thank you.”

NEXT TIME: A carol that dates back over 1,000 years…