Dawn of redeeming grace.
The dawn of redeeming grace.
Salzburg, Germany. Winter, 1816. Joseph Mohr’s congregation was weary—worn down by the Napoleonic Wars and wrecked by an eruption of Mount Tambora as volcanic ash killed crops and brought widespread famine. Spirits, drained. And bodies, hungry.
Mohr wanted to give his people something. To give them hope that there was still a God who cared. Still light, even in the darkest times.
The message came, as Christmas signs do, upon a midnight clear. Staring up at a starry night sky, Mohr saw "glories stream[ing] from heaven afar,” and felt the radiant beams pour into him, stirring his spirit with good news of great joy—for all the people.
Mohr picked up his pen and let it lead. A poem formed. Silent Night.
Two years later, Mohr convinced his friend Franz Gruber to set his poem to music. Gruber composed the melody in just a few hours and, together, they performed it for the first time in front of only a few. But soon, it would belong to the world.
Fast forward to Belgium, Christmas Eve of 1914. On the frigid frontlines at the height of World War I, German and British soldiers dueled as enemies in opposite trenches. Between them, No Man's Land—a territory patrolled by Darkness, filled with chaos, craters, and the cries of the dying.
Until Silent Night’s familiar melody danced from German trenches and into British ears. As if infused with deep magic, the tune suspended war's heavy curse. And for the day, soldiers set down their arms and met in the heart of darkness to share songs, food, games, and joy.
Something about the song, now translated into 300 languages, stirs the better angels of our nature and stills the voices conspiring to divide us. Its sweet melody nudges us back into the arms of a universal grace that transcends Christianity and unites people across cultures and faith, binding the wounds of alienation and stitching us back together.
As if the song itself wraps us in “love’s pure light,” and lifts us out of ourselves. No longer separate but one great whole.
It truly is a song for the world. Next time you hear it, sink into it. Emerge, ready to love with reckless abandon. Rescued, again, by redeeming grace.