Carols & Context: Silent Night

 

 203 years ago on Christmas Eve, the carol ‘Stille Nacht’ made its debut in St Nicolas parish church in Oberndorf, Austria.  The lyric had been written 2 years earlier by Catholic priest Joseph Mohr, but on Christmas Eve of 1818m he brought his poem to schoolmaster and organist Franz Xaver Gruber and asked him to compose a tune for it.  It was to be played on guitar at that night’s mass (the church’s organ was feared damaged by flooding).  Gruber obliged, and the rest is history.

  In fact, history is a big part of ‘Stille Nacht’ – which would be known in English as ‘Silent Night’.  It speaks of a tranquil scene, of “heavenly peace”.  Mohr wrote the words in the wake of the Napoleonic Wars (the year after their end).  His native Austria had been a major combatant in that conflict – the Austrian Empire opposed Napoleon’s forces.  It is estimated that over half a million Austrians were killed in action over these years of fighting – more than any of the other powers involved.  Joseph Mohr’s adulthood had been lived in the shadow of these wars, until they finished (he was around 23 at that time).  So it seems to me like Mohr might have cherished peace.  And he may also have been acutely aware of its fleetingness, its fragility in this word.  Austria spent much of the nineteenth century in some war or other.

  Just shy of a century after its debut, ‘Stille Nacht/Silent Night’ was performed in another famous context: the 1914 Christmas truce in the First World War.  The story goes that German and Allied troops emerged from their respective trenches and sang the carol in their own languages (they also played football together).  Again, how poignant it must have been, to sing of a silent night, instead of hearing gunfire every night; and how they might have longed for heavenly peace, instead of earthly war.

  The world they were living in may have seemed a far cry from the one the angels described on the first Christmas:

 

“Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favours [or, peace, goodwill among people]” (Luke 2:14)

 

  That day, that silent night in Palestine, 2000 or so years ago, was a snapshot, a glimpse, a note, of heavenly peace.  It was delicate, and it didn’t last, but every now and then, we can still catch glimpses like that, we can still hear echoes of ‘Silent Night’: ringing out in juxtaposition with the shots on battlefields and in our streets; sounding a noble countermelody to the noisy, polarized and polarizing rhetoric in Houses and homes; and as the peaceful resolution of the discord of imperialism and insidious ideologies.  One of the great problems of our age is our inability to disagree well, to hold difference.  Peace is possible – but it’s gentle and easily disturbed.  Maybe that’s why the dove is a common symbol of peace.

 The Hebrew Bible (the Old Testament) has this beautiful vision of a future peace – a vision so important that either God said it twice, or two different prophets used the same quote:

 

                “[The LORD] shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples;

they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks;

nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more” (Isaiah 2:4; cf. Micah 4:3)

 

  I wonder if Jesus, the “holy infant, so tender and mild”, slept in heavenly peace because he dreamed of that day?  And in his living and his dying, he showed us the way.

Carols & Context: Away in a Manger

 

One of the most well-known Christmas carols, ‘Away in a Manger’ is a staple of Nativity plays.  The song has been attributed to reformer Martin Luther in many carol books, but there seems little evidence that he actually wrote it.  For one thing, it was only published (in English, as ‘Away in a Manger’) in the nineteenth century, some 300 years after the German’s death.  There is no surviving German version, other than translations from English.

  It is sometimes reckoned that ‘Away in a Manger’ was a song that Luther wrote for his young son, but a more likely candidate for that is ‘Von Himmel hoch…’ – almost certainly penned by Luther, in German, and dealing with a similar theme (the opening line translates as “From heaven above [to earth I come]”).

  It has been suggested that ‘Away in a Manger’ is actually entirely American, perhaps the work of William J. Kirkpatrick.  But the song’s authorship is not the only assumption worth challenging here. ‘Away in a Manger’ is frequently sung at Nativity plays, with Mary, Joseph, baby Jesus, shepherds, angels, wise men (or some combination of these) in a stable scene.  It makes sense, because that’s where you’d find a manger, right?  And the Bible says that Mary laid the baby Jesus in a manger (Luke 2:7).  And why?  Because “there was no place for them in the inn”.  But let’s hold it there for a moment.  A more accurate rendering of that line, however, might be ‘there was no guest room for them.’  Luke uses another Greek word later in his gospel to talk about an inn (in the ‘Good Samaritan’ story, Luke 10:34) – why not use the same word here if he means an inn?

  Kenneth Bailey, an expert on the Near East, now and in New Testament times, has suggested that the manger may have been in a house.  Many houses in first-century Palestine had two parts inside – one part at ground level or slightly raised, which served as the living area for the human inhabitants; the other, lower part where the animals would be kept when indoors.  And in between would be the manger – easily accessible for the animals, and easily replenished with fodder by the people.

  Bear in mind that Joseph had to travel with Mary to his ancestral home in Bethlehem.  It’s possible – perhaps likely – that he still had relatives there.  And in the Near East, it is bad form not to open your home to travelling relations.  But if you had no guest room in your house, everyone would share the same living space, and a baby may well be put in the manger – it’s warm and soft, and it’s in easy reach.  So, if that was the case, then the Nativity is actually set against a backdrop of hospitality – someone opening their home to their family (maybe not close family) in need.

  Hospitality is a big deal in the Bible.  It’s culturally very important in the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible, but it also becomes a key tenet of the fledgling faith of the early Christians of the New Testament.  Jesus talked about hospitality quite a bit (Matthew 25:35f and Luke 14:12-14 are just 2 examples), as did Paul, who wrote or inspired many New Testament letters to churches (cf. Romans 12:13 especially).  The early church, according to Luke’s other book, Acts, was characterised by hospitality (cf Acts 2:45; 4:34ff).  I think hospitality is so important to them all because they could see opportunities to ‘pay it forward’ for hospitality they had experienced.  And maybe they erred on the side of hospitality because you never really know who your guest might be.  As the writer to the Hebrews counselled:

 

“Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it” (Hebrews 13:2).

 

  Sadly, we seem to live in an age (and a country?) that is more hostile than hospitable to strangers – such as refugees and asylum seekers.  We need only look at fairly recent events in the Channel, and in Parliament (see the Nationality and Borders Bill, currently in the House of Lords).  I want to be part of a country that takes the risk on welcoming the stranger, so we might entertain angels.  Jesus was into hospitality, maybe because he’d experienced it, starting when he was ‘Away in a Manger’.

Carols & Context: O Holy Night

 

One of the finest Christmas carols has to be ‘O Holy Night.’ It’s also one we don’t sing or play often enough, as it’s musically quite challenging – maybe because the tune was written by a French composer of operas.  The English version of the song is hugely popular, written by John Sullivan Dwight in 1855.  But this was based on his translation of the French ‘Minuit, Chretiens’, penned 12 years previous by Placide Cappeau.

  Cappeau was a French wine merchant, injured in a freak shooting accident as a child (the compensation for which funded his literary education).  His passion and skill was for literature, and so he was asked by the local priest to write a poem to mark the renovation of the church organ.  He agreed, and the result was the lyric of ‘Minuit, Chretiens’, also known as ‘Cantique de Noel’.

  It wasn’t without controversy, however.  Some in the Church at large discredited the composition, and its writers: Cappeau was not particularly religious, and (perhaps worse?) was a well-known socialist.  Adolphe Adam, the composer, was not a writer of music for ecclesiastical, but theatrical, use.  And yet, Cappeau got it.  He may not have been classically religious, but he understood Jesus, Christmas and the significance of it all – perhaps better than many who were.

  One thing I was struck by a few years ago, having sung this song in choirs and in religious settings, was that we only sing or hear 2 verses of ‘O Holy Night’ most of the time.  But there are 3 verses.  And the third verse is incredibly poignant:

 

                “Truly he taught us to love one another,

His law is love and his gospel is peace.

Chains shall he break, for the slave is our brother,

And in his name all oppression shall cease…”

 

This was a popular sentiment for Dwight (who published the English version) and many of his colleagues in the north of 1850s America – as Abolitionists.  Dwight was a Unitarian minister, committed to peace and justice.  A century later, he might have been persecuted as a ‘communist’, politically, and a liberal theologically.

  I sometimes wonder if there’s a reason that this verse is so often cut.  Perhaps it’s too ‘political’ for Christmas.  Maybe it’s uncomfortable, reminding us of a painful past, and persistent problems around race – and other forms of oppression, like the misogyny so rife today.

  But I think we need this song as a whole, with it “thrill of hope,” because “in his name all oppression shall cease.”  Christmas, for me, is about love and peace, joy and hope.  It’s about people coming together as family – a shared humanity, under the same starry sky.  In his birth, Jesus demonstrated solidarity with all people, and invites us to do the same.