Silent night

Silent night…

You probably are already singing the song in your head, or even humming or singing aloud.

Believers around the world gather on Christmas Eve. Many will likely sing this song, its words and music a soft crescendo to an evening celebrating the birth of Jesus.

Was it really a silent night? In a stable filled with livestock and a newborn child, how silent was it? I was there for the birth of my son; there was little silence then.

There is silence in this night, but not what we might hear in the words of this familiar hymn.

For some, the silence is the absence of a voice, the words of a loved one no longer here, the vacuum left behind like an emotional black hole.

For others, the silence is an unanswered prayer. An unhealed illness. An unrestored relationship. A unrelieved struggle or burden.

The silence might be feeling unheard, unseen, or marginalized, an invisibility for those who feel their voices often fall on deaf ears.

Some might experience anything but silence, sounds of fear, pain, or anxiety removing any sense of peace.

Whether silence or clatter, all is not calm, all is not bright. For these, there is no heavenly peace.

Or is there?

Contrary to the cleaned-up, sterilized manger scene, the birth of Jesus was a messy occasion. Parents without a comfortable place to stay. Rumors about this child conceived out of wedlock following them wherever they went. The king dispatching assassins to kill every male child to eradicate this newborn King.

Isn’t that the Savior we really need? One born into a messy, imperfect, smelly world? Don’t we want a Savior who enters the fray?

So often we seem to paint these beautiful, serene images of what happened in Bethlehem two thousand years ago. We want sweet little baby Jesus to experience this well-orchestrated, sterile, peaceful birth.

What really happened was probably more like our lives, full of disorder, confusion, and darkness. The Prince of Peace coming not in a neatly wrapped package, but in the most unlikely of scenes, relegated to a place where animals lived, ate, slept, and pooped.

I have learned to know and love this Jesus while embracing the messiness of life. Facing demons and wandering through The Valley of the Shadow of Death does that to a person.

There have been nights I lay in bed, hoping to not awaken the next morning. There have been days I felt paralyzed, overwhelmed by life. I have experienced the silence of loneliness and loss and the cacophony of despair and disorder.

Tonight, the words of Silent Night and the glimmer of candles will not remind me of a Hallmark card Nativity scene. Rather, they will remind me that Light entered the world in the midst of darkness and offers peace in the midst of chaos.

The silence I seek—and the silence I believe God offers—is an internal peace which doesn’t disregard, disguise, or dismiss the difficulties of life. Rather, it is a peace which stands with us in the shitstorm and suffers alongside us in the chaos. It is a peace working to make us all whole in this fractured and aching world.