I have always loved to sing the hymn “Silent Night.” It is so seared into my brain that I can’t help but hum it when I see the first Christmas decorations showing up around town. But as much as I love the hymn, the words challenge my imagination a little, especially the first two lines: “Silent night, holy night. / All is calm, all is bright.”
When I imagine the night our Savior was born, the last things I imagine are silence and calm.
The only thing I have to compare to that holy night is the nights that I gave birth. I remember so clearly the doctors and nurses rushing around, the newborns crying, the occasional visitors, the buzzing of machinery, and the groans of pain. Everything was far from calm and silent. In the stable, of course, there were no doctors or nurses or machinery buzzing, but there were no doubt visitors, a newborn crying, probably even more groaning from terrible unmedicated pain, and worse, the dirty hay and restless, stinky animals rustling all around.
So, at first glance, the hymn “Silent Night” seems to sugarcoat the Holy Family’s experience. After all, in addition to the cacophony of sounds all around them, they would soon need to flee a king who wished their newborn dead. Calm is definitely not how I imagine Mary and Joseph felt. How then, do we interpret what Fr. Joseph Mohr was thinking when he jotted down these words more than 200 years ago?
Reflecting on those first moments with my oldest, I remember something else besides the chaos, the noise, and the fear of suddenly being responsible for the life of the new human being before me.
I remember the briefest of moments when I first held my son’s hand in mine, such a small gesture that indicated that he was mine and I was his from this day forward. As I held his tiny hand and watched his fingers move in mine, the chaos surrounding both of us was stilled for just the briefest of seconds before it all started up again.
“Silent Night” is a powerful reminder of the awed silence we experience when the space between heaven and earth narrows, and God comes close. This song is a reminder that again and again we are overcome by God’s presence, right here in this broken yet beautifully human world.
