The Story of "Silent Night"

 Have you ever had a year in your life where there seemed to be no summertime, when crisis after crisis seemed to roll in like cold winter weather fronts? This was literally the case in Europe in 1816, which came to known as "The Year Without a Summer."

A major volcanic eruption in Indonesia affected weather patterns worldwide. Snow fell and frosts occurred even in August. This caused crop failures, which led to food shortages and famines. Riots and even typhus epidemics swept across Europe. These problems were compounded by the instability that had resulted from the just-ended Napoleonic Wars.

Christmas in 1816 was therefore not a care-free holiday. Joseph Mohr was an assistant priest living in Mariapfarr, Austria, where Bavarian troops were in the process of withdrawal. The war had disrupted the employment lifeline of the area: the salt trade, which interrupted the accompanying ship building and transportation industries. After a winter evening walk observing the quiet town, twenty-four year old Joseph came home and wrote a poem called "Stille Nacht." Its six stanzas touched on themes that people across the world long for, keenly highlighted by the year's traumatic events. We often sing only three of the stanzas he wrote, but the other three are beautiful as well:

"Silent night! Holy night!
Which brought salvation to the world,
From Heaven's golden heights,
Mercy's abundance was made visible to us:
Jesus in human form,
Jesus in human form.

Silent night! Holy night!
Where on this day all power
of fatherly love poured forth
And like a brother lovingly embraced
Jesus the peoples of the world,
Jesus the peoples of the world.

Silent night! Holy night!
Already long ago planned for us,
When the Lord frees from wrath
Since the beginning of ancient times
A salvation promised for the whole world.
A salvation promised for the whole world."

Two years later saw Joseph Mohr living in a different town. He had moved to Oberndorf, where he worked as the assistant priest in the St. Nicholas parish. His friend Franz Gruber was the church organist. On Christmas Eve morning of 1818, Joseph asked Franz to compose a melody for his poem that could be accompanied by a guitar. Franz immediately went to work, and that night the two friends sang the new song together for the Christmas Eve service.

When a repairman came later to work on the church's organ, Gruber tested the organ by playing "Silent Night." The repairman liked the song, and took a copy back home with him. Two musical families in the repairman's town began singing it. The Strassers sang it across Europe, and the Rainers brought it to New York City in 1839.

On Christmas Eve in World War I, fighting stopped as both German and English soldiers sang "Silent Night" in their own languages. Walter Kirchhoff, a tenor with the Berlin Opera before the war, began singing "Stille Nacht," and in the quiet cold air, his voice carried across the No Man's Land of the Flanders' battlefield. British soldiers in the trenches then responded in kind by singing "Silent Night." It was a profound moment deeply felt by all.

Translated into more than three hundred languages, the song continues to resonate with people around the world. It was added to UNESCO's World Heritage List, and after research, Time magazine wrote that it is "the most popular Christmas song of all time" (https://time.com/3613551/christmas-song/ ). So this Christmas, 206 years after "Stille Nacht" was introduced to the world at a Christmas Eve service on a guitar, we sing it again, grateful for the Child Who brings hope to difficult times. That hope found it's culmination in His death and resurrection, which made salvation possible for any person who believes.