Silent Night, Holy Night
Walking home from a Christmas pageant, a Catholic priest wrote the most beloved Christmas carol of all! His friend put some music to it, and their beautiful song has resonated with Christ-lovers for 200 years. Hear the story behind the song and take a look at his original six verses, in today’s Friday Classic episode.
Welcome back to Friday Classic Hymns. As we enter December, we're going to do some Christmas songs. For those asking, I've already done quite a few Christmas hymns over the last couple of years, so check those out in the playlist I've linked in the description below.
Today we're exploring what's possibly the most loved Christmas song of all: Silent Night. In fact, at our church's Christmas carols this year, we wanted to change things up, so we chose some different songs and dropped some of the usual ones. But this was one we just had to keep in because it so captures the feeling of Christmas. I'm looking forward to sharing the story and exploring the lyrics with you.
But before I do, if you'd like to help me spread these hymn stories around, please would you hit the like button underneath this video and subscribe to the channel? It's free and it helps me get these videos to more people.
So let me take you back to a small Austrian village in 1818.
The Story Behind "Silent Night"
It all began with Father Joseph Mohr, who was born in 1792 in Salzburg, Austria. He was ordained into the priesthood in 1815, but I guess he never imagined what great impact his ministry would have for centuries to come.
This is a story of how God works in mysterious ways, because Father Mohr was serving at a church called St Nicholas in Oberndorf. In 1818, a few days before Christmas, the church's Christmas pageant was supposed to happen, but the organ was broken, so they had to move the pageant to somebody's home.
Father Mohr attended the service, or the pageant, and on his way home was walking along, just noting the beautiful, still town. Can you picture it? Snow sparkling under the sky, stillness in the air. As he took in the scene and thought about what he had seen at the Christmas pageant, the words started to form in his mind for a song. He went home and penned six verses of the hymn "Silent Night", or "Stille Nacht" in German.
Also involved at St Nicholas was an organ player named Franz Gruber. Gruber and Mohr had been talking for a while about how they might write a Christmas song together. With great excitement, Father Mohr came along to Gruber and said he'd written it, gave him the words, and Gruber put together the most beautiful melody for the song.
Christmas Eve came along and the organ was still broken, so Father Mohr played the guitar, Franz Gruber sang bass whilst Mohr sang tenor, and a small choir joined them. For the first time, on Christmas Eve 1818, a small little section of the world heard Silent Night. Everybody loved it.
What's amazing about the song is the way that it went on to transcend many boundaries. It spread far and wide. It started quite locally, of course, when an organ builder came to the church a few years later and took a copy of the song back to his hometown. A few famous Austrian singers found it there, or heard it there, and started to travel around and sing it. Before long, it was going over the borders to all sorts of countries and has been translated into many languages. In fact, I believe there are eight different English translations or more of this hymn.
Maybe you've heard the great story of how this hymn impacted some soldiers in World War I. It was Christmas Eve 1914, and the German and British soldiers had been going at it, but on that night they were sitting in their respective trenches. The Germans began to sing this song. As the sound of that melody drifted across No Man's Land, the British soldiers heard it and they joined in, singing the English words because they recognised the melody. In this moment, the two sides who had been fighting to the death suddenly became united. In fact, they even walked out into No Man's Land, declaring a truce of sorts, and shared some food together and shared some cigarettes, and even played some soccer in No Man's Land. Amazing how this beautiful, simple Christmas song brought about feelings of hope and peace, even in the midst of the worst war that had ever been seen at the time.
Father Mohr moved around to different churches after he'd written the song, and sadly died at the young age of 55 from a respiratory disease. The small town in Austria in which he's laid to rest has a full exhibit to him that you can go and see. It stretches the area between his home in the town and the church that he worked at, so you can walk that little route and find out more about him.
The version we sing today was translated into English in the 1860s by an Episcopal minister named John F. Young.
What Do the Lyrics of "Silent Night" Mean?
What beautiful words he wrote. But as we look at the lyrics today, I want to start with Joseph Mohr's original six verses, because they are beautiful. Then we'll look at the three English verses as well.
Now, I don't speak German, so I used some online tools to try to get a direct translation of Mohr's original words. By the way, if you speak German, please help me to get these translations a little bit more clear. Maybe you're looking at the translation thinking that's not quite what it says. If you could share below a better translation, that would be great.
Verse 1 (Original German)
The first one that he wrote goes like this: Silent night, holy night, all sleep, only awake only the faithful, highly holy pair, lovely boy with curly hair, sleep in heavenly peace.
Isn't that lovely? It's obviously a picture of this quiet town and this holy pair - I suppose Mary and Joseph, the faithful holy pair - and their lovely boy with curly hair sleeping in heavenly peace. Beautiful.
Verse 2 (Original German)
Verse two says: Silent night, holy night, God's son, oh how He laughs, love from Your divine mouth, as the saving hour strikes for us, Christ in Your birth.
That's an interesting little verse.
Verse 3 (Original German)
Verse three says: Silent night, holy night, that brought salvation to the world.
That's lovely to sing. It reminds us of what it's all about.
From heaven's golden heights, the abundance of grace lets us see Jesus in human form.
That's lovely. I like the emphasis on salvation there, because that's what Jesus came to accomplish, isn't it? Bringing God's kingdom, opening it up to everybody so that we may all be saved and brought into the kingdom by His grace - the abundance of grace. I love that. He came from high, golden heaven and took on human form. That's a lovely verse.
Verse 4 (Original German)
Verse four is: Silent night, holy night, where today all power of fatherly love poured out.
The power of fatherly love - all that the love of God was poured out on that night when Jesus came.
And as a brother graciously embraced Jesus the peoples of the world.
I don't know for sure, but I think that might be saying that Jesus came and, as a brother, graciously embraced the people of the world. One of the ministers that I really look up to often prays in church, and at the end of his prayer says, "In the name of Jesus, our brother, our friend, our Saviour" - something like that. I've always loved how he emphasises that we are brothers and sisters with Christ. Of course, He's more than that to us, but He came as a human being to be a brother to us. That's lovely.
Verse 5 (Original German)
Verse five: Silent night, holy night, long since planned for us, when the Lord freed us from wrath, in the Father's ancient time, promised mercy to all the world.
Again, I think the translation's a bit clunky, but can you see what he's saying? He's talking about how this night was long planned. It was part of God's plan. In the ancient times, God had already planned it and promised to free us and give us mercy. I love that.
Verse 6 (Original German)
Then verse six: Silent night, holy night, first made known to shepherds through the angels' Hallelujah, it resounds loudly from far and near, Christ the Saviour is here.
So a little bit of a picture painted of that original Christmas with the angels and the shepherds. Strange to read these words. Okay, I know, as I said, the translation's not great I don't think, but you can see what he was thinking. He was painting the whole picture of what Christmas was all about.
Verse 1
Now, the translation that we know is this one. I'm sure you recognise these words:
Silent night, holy night,
all is calm, all is bright,
round yon virgin mother and child,
holy infant so tender and mild,
sleep in heavenly peace.
This verse always confused me as a kid. I didn't know what "round yon virgin" means. Obviously I know now that Mary is the virgin mother. He's saying that there's calmness and brightness around this whole scene - around the virgin mother and the child, the holy infant, tender and mild, sleeping in heavenly peace. I've always loved that picture of Jesus asleep in the manger. Lovely.
Verse 2
Silent night, holy night,
shepherds quake at the sight.
I'm sure they did. I'm sure they shook when they saw the sight.
Glories stream from heaven afar,
heavenly hosts sing Alleluia,
Christ the Saviour is born.
That must have been quite a sight for the shepherds. I always am marvelling at how God chose the shepherds and not the religious elite. You know, the Pharisees and the Jews who were waiting for the Messiah - wouldn't it have made sense for Him to explain it to them? But no, He came to the shepherds, bringing in the unusual, the lowly, the outcasts into His salvation story. Jesus would do the same. He would hang out not with the religious elites but with the fishermen and the tax collectors, and possibly even the shepherds.
Verse 3 (English Translation)
Silent night, holy night,
Son of God, love's pure light.
Beautiful. Love's pure light. Jesus, of course, is both love and light. We worship Him as the embodiment of love and light.
And that light beams - love's pure light - radiant beams from Thy holy face.
So from His face beams this pure light and love.
With the dawn of redeeming grace.
Of course, as He was born, this was the dawn of the grace that He alone could bring. The Old Testament was also an era of grace, but in a different way. God was still gracious to His people, very gracious to His people in the Old Testament. But with Jesus came the dawn of redeeming grace for all, not through animal sacrifice but through the sacrifice that He made on the cross.
And so even at His birth, “Jesus, Lord at Thy birth”, we worship Him as Lord at Christmas time.
Conclusion
Well, what beautiful words, and this is such a special song.
Please share what words of the song touch your heart. Please share what verse or what line just sparks something in you. If you have any other stories or thoughts on the song, please share them in the comments below.
A big thank you to everybody who donates towards the work I do here online. Those on Patreon get the MP3s of the music here that I put out online and the extra devotions that I do. Please also check out my second channel, which is Luke Powell Daily Devotions. I'd love for you to check those. If you enjoy this kind of tone of the message here, you'll enjoy those devotions too.
References
Osbeck, K.W. 1985. 101 Hymn Stories. Kregal Publications: Grand Rapids
McLelland, J. 1994. The Ambassador Book of Great Hymn Stories. Ambassador Productions Ltd: Belfast
History of Hymns: Silent Night, Holy Night - UMC Discipleship
