Out of bored desperation today I tried while waiting in the car for someone as they ran an errand. No matter what station you switch to you will hear one of two things; advertisements trying to get you to run out and buy into Christmas specials, or Christmas Carols.

I’ll be honest. I’m not necessarily the biggest fan of Christmas songs. I get into them just enough to try and catch the Christmas spirit, but I do find a lot of them either a bit too cheesy or the hymns are just too sad sounding or hard to sing! Just sometimes I want some normal music on the radio to pass the time while I’m out being busy at Christmas time!

The past few days, however, I’ve stumbled across a small nugget of beauty tucked away in one of those classic Christmas hymns. I was in an interesting discussion recently about the song Silent Night. Someone was light heartedly pointing out their annoyance at the pretentiousness of the song. Their main points were:

“Silent night
(crying baby much?)
Holy night
(definitely)
All is calm
(if angels rocking your world and giving birth is calm, sure)
All is bright
(isn’t this song about night time? did they have flashlights?)
Round yon virgin mother and child
(no clue what that means)
Holy infant so tender and mild
(tender yes, but again back to the crying baby thing)
Sleep in heavenly peace
(ha! I’m not even a dad yet and I know there’s not much sleep to be had)”

Which humorously brought to mind a point my mother likes to make whenever she hears the song Away in a Manger which claims ‘no crying he made’. A non-crying baby, we know he was sinless, but he was fully human…and I’m sorry but every human baby I’ve ever met cries. (which makes it sound like I have a way of scaring babies..hmmm!)

The truth is, there probably wasn’t a whole lot of blissful peace and calm involved in giving birth in a make shift abode along side the farmers cow after a week’s worth of traveling across the country as a very pregnant woman. (seriously, can you imagine?) Nor was hosts of angels appearing to freaked out shepherds necessary as quiet as a Silent night proposes.

There was seemingly no peace to be found in the circumstances that surrounded Mary and Joseph through this ordeal. Yet, I think God still managed to bring peace. It’s been said, peace is bigger than circumstances. It is bigger and better than what we can perceive given our surroundings. Perhaps the song speaks about that moment, however small, when the dust settled, and there was peace.

This Christmas, especially the past few days, I have felt what I’m sure a lot of people encounter around this time. A sometimes overwhelming feeling that there is just too much to do, to plan, to buy, to attend. I was thinking its so far from what it should be, so many obligations and tension and events and costs and things to do and the meaning gets drowned out by all.

As I was busy being frustrated by all this, the conversation about Silent Night came back to mind. I found a bit of solidarity in the fact that even on the night of the real deal, it was probably easy to miss the peace and calm of the beautiful thing God was doing. Even now, despite whatever chaos it seems that Christmas time can bring, the silent moments of meaning are still there. Maybe its just to remember to look and find the peace and meaning in all the chaos.

In true fashion to the fact that I probably have way more important things I should be doing, I decided to look up the history of the song Silent Night. I learnt a couple good trivia facts, such as the story that claims Silent Night was composed so it could be played on guitar, instead of the organ. This was unusual because organs were the instrument of the ‘church’. (Which probably only I find interesting because I’m a guitar fan).

Aside from those random tid bits, I came across the story of the Christmas Truce of 1914 which occurred during World War I. Perhaps due to ignorance on my part, but I had never before heard about this unofficial break in the War that happened as soldiers from both sides put aside the agenda of war to cross No Man’s Land and exchange cigarettes, chocolate and whiskey. The song Silent Night was sung simultaneously in English and German by troops, as it was one of the few carols that soldiers on both sides of the front line knew. Everyone may not get the full story of Christmas, but something about what is celebrated at this time got these soldiers, who were dutifully killing each other days before, to cease fire and help each other bury their dead and share meals in the trenches. In one or two places soldiers who had been barbers in civilian times even gave free haircuts! In a letter, one soldier wrote home, “We can hardly believe that we’ve been firing at them for the last week or two—it all seems so strange ”

Peace in the chaos.

Christmas is a celebration of God’s choice to stoop to our level to help us out the muck we’ve made of things. I can’t think of many things uglier than war. How much further from God’s heart can it get than his creation massacring each other? But even in the middle of the greatest chaos, somehow he can bring peace.

For those soldiers I have no doubt, that was a silent night, a holy night.

So…I’m going to try to find those peaceful, holy moments even in all the business of the coming week or two, because they are there. This is all a celebration of God deciding to be with us afterall..

20 December 2008