Getting Ready For The Week | Christmas With Compassion | Silent Night, Holy Night
Getting Ready For The Week
Silent Night, Holy Night
Sunday, December 28, 2025
Reading For Sunday | Luke 2:1-21
Getting Ready For the Week
The Christmas hymn “Silent Night” is undoubtedly one of the most widely known of all Christmas songs. This gentle melody has a lullaby-like shape. Its slow, rocking rhythm feels like a cradle song as it moves back and forth. The lyrics paint a picture of calm, quiet, and light. For decades, the tenderness of this Christmas favorite has resonated deeply during candlelight services and Christmas Eve traditions.
The poem was written by Josef Mohr in 1816 and was set to music two years later. Mohr asked his friend Franz Gruber, an organist at his church, to compose a simple melody with guitar accompaniment. The song was performed for the first time on Christmas Eve in 1818. Both the poet and the church organist sang in the ensemble that first presented the song.
There are accounts—though not all documented, yet widely repeated in letters and memoirs—of Union and Confederate soldiers singing “Silent Night” across picket lines on Christmas Eve. Because the tune was familiar on both sides, it became a moment of shared humanity and a temporary ceasefire.
Perhaps the most famous story involving this carol comes from Christmas Eve in 1914 during World War I, when German soldiers began singing “Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht.” British troops heard the melody, recognized “Silent Night,” and began singing along in English. Soldiers from both armies climbed out of the trenches, shook hands as they greeted one another, exchanged small gifts of chocolate and tobacco, and even played a brief game of soccer.
Some say “Silent Night” has since become a symbol of that moment—a fragile, unexpected peace in one of the darkest wars in history. It has certainly become a treasured hymn of consolation, directing our hearts and minds to the Holy One of God, born on a silent night in a lowly animal shelter.
The poem was written by Josef Mohr in 1816 and was set to music two years later. Mohr asked his friend Franz Gruber, an organist at his church, to compose a simple melody with guitar accompaniment. The song was performed for the first time on Christmas Eve in 1818. Both the poet and the church organist sang in the ensemble that first presented the song.
There are accounts—though not all documented, yet widely repeated in letters and memoirs—of Union and Confederate soldiers singing “Silent Night” across picket lines on Christmas Eve. Because the tune was familiar on both sides, it became a moment of shared humanity and a temporary ceasefire.
Perhaps the most famous story involving this carol comes from Christmas Eve in 1914 during World War I, when German soldiers began singing “Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht.” British troops heard the melody, recognized “Silent Night,” and began singing along in English. Soldiers from both armies climbed out of the trenches, shook hands as they greeted one another, exchanged small gifts of chocolate and tobacco, and even played a brief game of soccer.
Some say “Silent Night” has since become a symbol of that moment—a fragile, unexpected peace in one of the darkest wars in history. It has certainly become a treasured hymn of consolation, directing our hearts and minds to the Holy One of God, born on a silent night in a lowly animal shelter.
Resources
Advent for Everyone - N. T. Wright, book
(Also available for Matthew’s Gospel and the Apostles Writings)
Waiting for Jesus: An Advent Invitation to Payer and Renewal, by Rich Villodas, book
(Also available for Matthew’s Gospel and the Apostles Writings)
Waiting for Jesus: An Advent Invitation to Payer and Renewal, by Rich Villodas, book