During the 1818 Christmas season in Oberndorf, a tiny town in the beautiful Austrian Alps, Reverend Josef Mohr, the 26-year-old assistant pastor of St. Nicholas Church, wrote a poem celebrating the glory of the birth of Jesus Christ.
Mohr brought the poem to Franz Gruber, the church organist, and requested that the musician set the words to music. That Christmas Eve, Gruber and Mohr sang their melody accompanied by guitar, little dreaming that this song would become very likely the greatest Christmas carol of them all: “Silent Night! Holy Night!” It would be difficult to go through the Christmas season without singing and/or hearing this carol.
It is tragic, but also true, that many of the nights in much of the world today are neither silent nor holy. Nations are divided by racial, political, economic, religious and social turmoil. A very dark cloud currently looms on the world’s horizon that has the potential to threaten catastrophic damage or the end to civilization. Terrorist organizations are growing in size and number. Newspaper headlines and television newscasts regularly scream of new dangers somewhere in the world. Newscasts have even mentioned the fact that some believe we could be on the front doorsteps of World War III.
Jesus spoke of a time in the future when men would “faint from fear and the expectation of the things which are coming upon the world” (Luke 22:26). We could be living in the time that Jesus described as “the last days.” There can be little doubt that the world today is more dangerous than it has ever been. Silent Night! Holy Night! seems to many only a false hope in the face of today’s reality.
Make an imaginary journey back to that first Christmas when the little band of weary shepherds had settled down to sleep on the cold, rocky ground outside Bethlehem. They likely thought it would be a night no different than thousands of others they had experienced. But God had other plans for them and for the world. This was the night when God Himself would physically enter our world as the child of a young virgin.
Luke expresses it this way: “An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them: and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid. I bring you great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord‘” (Luke 2:9-11 NEB).
Imagine that you were one of those shepherds on that historic night. Can you not feel the fear that gripped their hearts? One translation says, “They were terror-stricken” (Luke 2:9, Phillips). Not knowing initially what was happening, fear was an understandable emotion.
Four times the shepherds were told by the angels not to be afraid. Zacharias, an elderly man and Joseph, betrothed to Mary, were told by the angels not to fear. Mary was also told not to be afraid.
“Fear not” is still one of the messages that God gives to those who accept His Son as Savior and Lord. We humans are often gripped and enslaved by fears of different kinds: those caused by loneliness, those when told we or a loved one is facing a terminal illness and those that present us with challenges we are not prepared to meet. Multitudes of people are especially afraid to die. Christ is the answer to all these fears.
That first Christmas was only the beginning for the Christ child. On the distant horizon was a Roman cross. And beyond that cross was the empty tomb. Christ came into our world to take away not only our sin, but also our fears. When we realize that God’s Son has taken the penalty for our sins upon Himself, making it possible for us to be reconciled to God, we do not need to be paralyzed any longer by the fear of dying.
Even in a world where turmoil and strife are commonplace, and where countless dangers lurk around almost every corner, we can know what it means to experience the meaning of “Silent Night, Holy Night” in our heart. We can experience what God’s Word calls “the peace of God which transcends all understanding” (Philippians 4:7 NEB).
It happens the moment you accept Jesus Christ as both Savior and Lord. If you have not yet done that, there is no better time than today.
The Paper Pulpit 
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