“At the right time,
God sent his Son, born of a woman, subject to ordinary law." ~ Galatians
4:4
Believe it or not, "O Holy
Night" was written by someone who wasn’t very holy at all. The words were penned by Placide Cappeau, an
amateur poet and local wine merchant with contempt for religious
authority. Nonetheless, when a local
priest sought to memorialize renovations to his church’s organ, he asked Cappeau
to write a poem for the Christmas service.
Cappeau imagined himself a witness to Christ’s birth. The wonder of that glorious moment flowed from
his pen as "Cantique de Noel" (Song of Christmas). Ironically, his enduring legacy is for a song
whose message he never believed.
Moved by his own work, Cappeau turned to a friend, Adolphe
Adams, to put his words to music. As a
Jewish man, the words of "Cantique de Noel" represented a day Adams
didn't celebrate and a man he didn’t view as the son of God.
The carol became instantly popular, but plummeted once word
got out about Cappeau’s atheism and Adams’ Jewish faith. The church leadership banned the song from
the liturgy.
Eventually, this tune reached
the ears of John Sullivan Dwight, a minister, who in 1855, translated it into
English. The resulting hymn became “O
Holy Night.” His version sanitized some
of the original, more controversial lyrics.
Chorus
Fall on your knees, Oh hear the
angel voices! O night divine! O night when Christ was born. O holy night, O night divine.
“Holy” means
“set apart,” and there was certainly no night like that one. But the Bible actually goes to great
lengths to convince us of the opposite.
The night was ordinary; we have no biblical record of the
stars being especially bright that night.
Just, ordinary shepherds, and ordinary and stable, and remarkably
ordinary parents.
Yet Jesus was no ordinary baby - innocent, vulnerable, and
dependent. His birth marked the occasion
when God became one of us. The world
needed a savior - someone who would provide a way out of the mess of sin and
make us right with God.
No god before Him had ever taken such a human journey. How could we follow His footsteps if He hadn’t
crawled as a child? How could we believe
He understood the temptations we face if He’d bypassed the difficulties we
struggle with in gaining adulthood?
It would’ve meant less to us if He’d sprung from heaven
fully formed, bathed in heavenly glory, saying, "Here are my hands and my
feet - place me upon the cross, for I am willing to die."
We trust Him with our lives because He is God. We love him with our hearts because He was a
tiny baby, wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.
Almighty Father, I pray that as we listen to “O
Holy Night” this Christmas our attention will be drawn away from shopping,
overeating and endless images of Santa. Let our devotion be drawn to the One who made
that night truly divine. Amen
