Silent Night
/December 19, 2023
Devotional written by: Mary Ann Orr
“Silent night, holy night
All is calm, all is bright…”
We all know the lyrics, and many of us have Christmas Eve church service memories of singing these words to candlelight, tucked into a pew with our family. It’s Christmas Eve, we’re dressed in our Christmas best, we’ve got some variety of special evening family plans ahead. By the time we make it to this item in the service program, it’s dark outside. We’re all in the Christmas spirit, the lights are lowered, the candles are passed out… the night is here. When the first notes are played, we look around and exhale a thought of: “and, NOW it is really Christmas.”
Until the age of 25, those were my feelings anytime I heard this song. It was probably my most favorite moment of the Christmas season year after year. Growing up, during this service, the sanctuary of Madison Baptist transformed into this most sacred space, the candle flames lit up the stained glass windows, and my Daddy (who wasn’t usually a hymn singer… unless he was singing in his deep “church voice” to make my brother and me giggle) would sing beside me in a voice that I heard over all the others. I’d look up at him, holding his candle close, and the look on his face was always just so…. “Daddy.” I felt warm and safe and loved and oh, SO Christmas-y. After the first verse, I’d sung the words I knew by heart and spent the rest of the stanzas just looking around, not paying much mind to their words. I had all I needed… and it was Christmas.
Then my 25th Christmas came. And my Daddy wasn’t here anymore. And the presence of his absence was all that we felt that year. It really didn’t even feel like Christmas at all. That first year after he passed, we put on our Christmas best and our forced, smiling faces, made it to church, had the same special Christmas Eve family plans… but our pew wasn’t quite as crowded anymore. What had been my most favorite, most special moment of Christmas became the one I dreaded. And still I knew that this sacred item on the service program was coming, but I just wanted to skip it. The lyrics felt flat. Without him here, “heaven afar” seemed the most meaningful words in the song. The moment didn’t feel sacred at all without him there. I can remember fearing the dimming of the lights, not feeling the Christmas flame that matched the one on my candle, and singing those words in the first verse over thoughts of “but this just isn’t Christmas.” All felt too silent, too calm, not at all bright, and, honestly, not very holy. And then…
“…. Radiant beams from Thy holy face. With the dawn of redeeming grace.”
As soon as I sang those lyrics standing in the pew between my mom and brother, tears streaming down our faces, I imagined hearing them in my Daddy’s special Christmas Eve voice. I realized that while he was no longer here with us, that THAT was a depiction of my Daddy’s Christmas, that year and forevermore. While we were here without him, trying to be Christmas people, making our way through the items in the Christmas Eve service program, he was in that holy place, and he knew His holy face. The image of my Daddy’s candlelit face, the sound of his voice, the hug of his arms filled me… but I imagined him doing those same things in heaven. Instead of a sanctuary, the ultimate holy space. Instead of candlelight, truly radiant beams. He’d borne witness to the redeeming grace. Glories streaming from heaven… and he was there. And, in that moment, I felt like the space between heaven and our pew closed, and this song transformed for me. “Heaven afar” wasn’t what I felt, and it surprised me.
My prayer for anyone feeling an absence this Christmas is that you feel radiant beams in some form, at some time. That in the silence and calmness, you feel the brightness that only He can bring, and that you, too, feel the space between your loved one in heaven and you in your pew close just a little bit.
Merry Christmas with so much love.