“The Almost Silent Night” (Luke 2:4-7), December 21, 2008
The myth is that happiness can be found by pursuing it.
Why is that a myth? Because every time we set the bar for what will make us happy – a sensual pleasure, a possession, a certain level of income, a political change – we find out as soon as we reach that level that happiness didn’t happen. It’s not found there.
The perfect carol
It’s been almost two hundred years since two friends living in the Austrian Alps combined their creativity to write “the perfect Christmas carol.”
It was Christmas Eve, 1818. Joseph Mohr was a 26-year-old priest charged with planning the annual Christmas festival. His friend, Franz Gruber, was the organist for a church appropriately named St. Nicholas. Gruber was also a school teacher.
Mohr and Gruber would often commiserate that the perfect Christmas carol had never been written. They actually discussed that year the need to write a fresh piece for the festival, but visiting a poor wood-chopper’s family became a priority for Mohr, since the wife had just given birth to a child in need of the priest’s blessing.
On his way home on Christmas Eve, the star-filled night, the snowy mountains, the village lights, and the murmur of the valley river combined with the realization of approaching Christmas to inspire Mohr to write a new poem. He did not finish the words until 4:00 the next morning. He then showed them to his friend, Franz Gruber.
Gruber wrote the melody and the two of them planned to sing it that night. The church organ broke down, so Gruber’s guitar became the instrument of choice as for the first time the world was introduced to a duet of the perfect Christmas carol in German –
Stille Nacht! Heilige Nacht!
Alles schläft; einsam wacht
Nur das traute hoch heilige paar.
Holder knabe im lockiken haar
Schlaf in himmlicher ruhe
Schlaf in himmlicher ruhe
What if
That story has been told with a number of variations, and I suppose we may never know all the precise details. The common threads are that Mohr the minister and Gruber the musician wrote “Silent Night” and first performed it publicly with a guitar because the organ was out of order.
Without their inspiration and ingenuity that Christmas would have been a “silent night,” musically speaking.
It’s one of those “What if” stories. What if that particular duo had not joined their efforts to produce this carol? It just seems to me that Christmas wouldn’t be the same. Certainly Candlelighting at Corinth wouldn’t be the same.
The “What if” question takes me back to Bethlehem and Luke’s story of Jesus’ birth. A newborn’s cry pierced the night in the stable cave at Bethlehem. What if there had been no cry, no baby, no Savior of the world? What if Mary had not been willing to bear God’s Son? What if Joseph had insisted on justice for the fiancée he thought had betrayed him? What if angels had no reason to light up the sky or fill it with praises? What if that night had been silent?
The thought is almost unimaginable. Two thousand-plus years later, we are here honoring that same Jesus with our presence, our readings, our offerings, and our songs. And he is glad, he really is. The fact that this night is not silent, and that on this one night he is the center of our lives – this brings him joy.
Deeper and further
If that’s true, how much more his heart longs for us to go deeper and further. He didn’t come to occupy a little corner of the earth for a short time on one day a year – or even one week. He came as our Savior, as Christ the Lord, to bring “peace on earth to those with whom God is pleased” (Luke 2:14, NLT).
But what if we miss that truth? What if we come to a service like this because it seems the thing to do at Christmas, and miss meeting him? As the pastoral and music staff planned this service we said how we long for each of us to encounter Jesus Christ tonight – in a song, in a Scripture, in the meditation. Perhaps for some here tonight, this would be a moment of transformation.
We need the message of Christmas more than ever. 2008 has been a year that has made me more aware than ever of the delusion our founding fathers wrote into the Declaration of Independence when they declared that every human being has an inalienable right to the pursuit of happiness. What is true is that we should have the right to pursue happiness or God – or not. The myth is that happiness can be found by pursuing it.
Why is that a myth? Because every time we set the bar for what will make us happy – a sensual pleasure, a possession, a certain level of income, a political change – we find out as soon as we reach that level that happiness didn’t happen. It’s not found there.
What’s more, we have this crazy idea that it is at least theoretically possible to make everybody happy. Married couples and families work toward it. Even churches, who should know better, fall into the trap of trying to be everyone’s happiness guru.
Politicians promise happiness for all, and in times of economic prosperity they seem believable. Then comes a year like 2008, when the reality dawns afresh that we were climbing a greased pole toward a mirage.
The only true happiness comes in the message we celebrate tonight. This tradition would not have lasted almost seven decades if it were not about a message that has lasted 2,000 years. And the message would not have last two millennia and spread around the globe not by force but by love if it were not true. So invite you again to hear tonight that true happiness is found in relationship with Jesus.
Don’t let this be a silent night in your heart. Don’t leave here the way you came in – if you came in persuaded that this is simply an annual, sentimental diversion to real life which properly occupies our attention the rest of the year.
Seize this opportunity to absorb in a moment of spiritual transformation that two thousand years ago God penetrated time and space in the person of Jesus Christ. Listen to the words of the songs. They sing his story. Hear the timeless Scripture. It points to him. Breathe your silent prayer, “Lord Jesus, you came for me. You died for my sins. You rose to give me life.” Lift your candle as a visual expression that he is worthy of your time not just on this one night each year, but that every other attempt at happiness pales into oblivion when compared to the promise of true life through Jesus Christ.
(© 2008 by Robert M. Thompson. Unless otherwise indicated, Scriptures quoted are from The Holy Bible,
New International Version, Copyright 1978 by New York International Bible Society.)