Silent Night? by Brady

By far and away the most popular Christmas carol of all-time is Silent Night. It is a song that has been translated into over 300 languages and dialects since being written originally in German. It was also actually the song sung in unification during World War I on the day known as the Christmas Truce of 1914. Both German and American troops sang the song because it was one of the few carols both sides knew by heart and in each other’s languages.

Why is this famous song so well known when the text actually never even speaks directly to the night of Jesus’ birth being “silent?” One of the reasons I believe it has made such a deep impact on humanity is the fact that we are all either consciously or subconsciously aware that God moves deep in us when the world is silent around us. There is the famous account of Elijah on the mountain and God speaking to him in a whisper, or literally silence, in 1 Kings 19. The deafening silence of Jesus as he bore our punishment on the cross also rings out. But perhaps the most important moment when God moved in silence was the night of the incarnation, or the coming of God in human form.

God could have chosen any way He wanted to reveal himself. He could have been born in a throne room on a plush pillow. He could have been born in front of a cheering crowd. He could have been born out of a cow if He wanted to. He even could have ridden a lightning bolt and appeared out of nowhere. But instead, he chose silence. And who were the first ones to see the babe? It happened to be shepherds sitting under stars in silence. And even the person who would clear the way for Christ, John the Baptist, through loud preaching was preceded by silence. Luke 1 talks about Zechariah, John’s father, being muted by an angel until the day John was born. There is a theme developing here in the birth narrative of Jesus.

What I think is ironic is that we have turned Christmas into the exact opposite of what the first Christmas was actually like. We have made the celebration of the birth of the most selfless man to ever live about consumption and greed. We have made the Good News of the season into the Bad News of the in-laws overstaying their welcome. And most importantly and rarely discussed, we have made the pristine and deafly silent night into crowded parking lots and busy malls.

Frederick Buechner wrote this about the noise in our lives: “What deadens us most to God’s presence within us, I think, is the inner dialogue that we are continuously engaged in with ourselves, the endless chatter of human thought. I suspect that there is nothing more crucial to true spiritual comfort, as the huge monk in cloth of gold put it, than being able from time to time to stop that chatter including the chatter of spoken prayer. If we choose to seek the silence of the holy place, or to open ourselves to its seeking, I think there is no surer way than by keeping silent.” (Listening to Your Life, pg. 332)

The other night I was attempting to talk about this very subject with my youth, and you would not believe how impossible it is to achieve complete silence. The most disturbing part was the fact that I was trying to retell the story of God coming to our rescue, not to mention the person they all claim to worship, and it was almost impossible to get the noise to cease. Before you jump on the “they’re just teenagers” copout, you need to know that this is the same generation of kids who cannot sleep unless music is playing or the TV is on. We are officially training ourselves to never have a moment of silence. The biggest problem with this growing trend is that we are never truly confronted by ourselves if we never escape the white noise.

God came on a silent, holy night. The first announcement of The King was not to a band, newscaster, or tabloid reporter, but some shepherds who happened to be available to listen. My prayer is that you push back. Push back against society. Push back against yourself. Jesus came to save us from sin, but He also came to save us from ourselves. Turn off the noise; sit with your complete self, no matter how bad it hurts, and then, and only then, will you possibly be available to hear the angels proclaim the Good News. May you push back, experience a silent night for yourself, and in turn finally be able to sleep in heavenly peace.