“Silent night, holy night. All is calm, all is bright.”
“O little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie. Above thy deep and dreamless sleep, the silent stars go by.”
“The cattle are lowing, the baby awakes. But little Lord Jesus, no crying he makes.”
When you imagine the night of Christ’s birth, sentiments like these have likely influenced what you see in your mind’s eye. In the public imagination, that holy night was one marked by stillness, by rest, and by calm. When we talk about the peace of Christmas, our carols point us to a silent night in Bethlehem.
Of course, any parent can tell you there is virtually no chance that this wistful fantasy matches the reality of history. For Joseph, that night was the culmination of hours of futility and helplessness, hours spent trying in vain to find a place for his wife to comfortably give birth. For Mary, it was a night of fear and pain, an amalgam of the normal concerns of childbirth and the unbelievable responsibility God had given her. And as for the Christ child—well, maybe he slept soundly that first night, who knows. But as a parent of two, let’s just say I have my doubts.
The more honest picture of that night doesn’t highlight Joseph’s stoic faithfulness, but his clammy hands and strained words of encouragement. It doesn’t silence Mary’s cries of pain or hide her blood on the ground. It allows for the possibility that not only stars, but also a baby’s relentless demands for milk, filled the Bethlehem sky that night.
If your conception of Christmas’s peace is shaped by the gauzy vision of a silent night in a little town, then these realities may seem a burden too heavy to bear. But in fact, perhaps this truer imagining of Christ’s birth points us to a truer understanding of the peace of God. For from manger to cross, Christ shows us that peace is not found in the absence of hardship, but in the beauty God brings out of it.
Life is rarely still or calm or orderly, and it probably wasn’t the night Jesus was born. But there is peace to be found in the story of that Bethlehem night, peace that can carry us through the end of this chaotic year: out of the most difficult moments, God brings forth life.
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