Silent Night Read Free

lullaby to soothe children to sleep.
    As with many traditional songs, its origins are lost in time—and it is even difficult to find a definitive version of the lyrics. It was first sung in Austrian villages prior to 1819, and it spread by word of mouth with mothers and fathers singing it to their children as they remembered it, adapting it here and there.
    By 1819 the lyrics had become attached to “The Salzburg Melody,” and written copies were circulated. Variations in the words still persisted, but the differences really made no difference. The themes of rest, comfort, and reassurance shine through regardless of which version is sung. The song, seemingly sung by a mother to her child, might just as easily have been crooned by a loving God to a fretful humankind.
    The snow is falling on Christmas Eve (the carol tells us), and nothing need disturb our sleep. God’s angels are attentive and His love is all-encompassing. He is sending His Son to be born for our sake, and when we wake in the morning, everything will be different. Our problems will have a solution. Adam’s fall will be redeemed.
    So sleep and don’t worry. God has it all in hand.
    A beautiful and comforting promise—one we are reminded of every Christmas.
    Overly simplistic, perhaps? Well, of course, it
isn’t
as easy as all that; we still have our very important part to play. We have to allow ourselves to be loved.
    So the Levites stilled all the people, saying, Hold your peace, for the day is holy; neither be ye grieved
.
    N EHEMIAH 8:11

S ECTION 2
C AROLS OF
Wonder
     
    What means that star?”

the shepherds said …

And angels, answering overhead, sang
,
“Peace on earth, good-will to men!
    J AMES R USSELL L OWELL

Angels, from the Realms of Glory
    Angels from the realms of glory
,
Wing your flight o’er all the earth
.
Ye who sang creation’s story
,
Now proclaim Messiah’s birth
.
    Come and worship. Come and worship
.
Worship Christ, the newborn King
.

Home to Glory
    J ames Montgomery, author of “Angels, from the Realms of Glory,” was a gentle man, but he didn’t shirk from criticizing the status quo if he thought there was a better way. In a gentle dig at popular hymn writers, he suggested they often started off with a good idea but wandered on from there until they lost sight of their original intention.
    Montgomery, on the other hand, liked to find a powerful theme and stick with it. The idea that God would come to earth through Jesus Christ struck him as an awesome one, well worth rejoicing over. He left the theme for one stanza only, to tell what this miracle meant to humankind. Repentant sinners, he said, had been set free. Mercy had broken their chains.
    An orphan boy who eventually became a newspaper owner, Montgomery found himself in chains more than once. His views on poverty, social conditions, and slavery earned him two spells of imprisonment in York Castle. Undaunted, he would go on to champion many causes that bettered the plight of the ordinary man and woman.
    His earthly reward, for his reforms, his poetry, and his hymns, would eventually come in the form of a royal pension.
    Asked which of his works would survive him, he replied in a way that clearly showed his priorities. “None, sir. Nothing except, perhaps, a few of my hymns.” “Angels, from the Realms of Glory” is still sung all across the English-speaking world, more than a century and a half after his death.
    Growing up without a family may have brought Montgomery closer to the realms of charity. Spending his childhood with no place to call home may have brought him closer to the realms of eternity. The day after completing his four hundredth hymn, at age eighty-three, he went to his real home and his heavenly family.
    The angels must have rejoiced in the realms of glory when James Montgomery arrived.
    Praise ye him, all his angels: praise ye him, all his hosts. Praise ye him, sun and moon: praise him, all ye stars of light
.
    P SALM 148:2–3

Good