asking if a baby had been born. King Herod was greatly
distressed by this and made plans to kill the new born baby.
When he couldn’t find the child, he gave orders…‘When Herod
realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was
furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem
and its vicinity who were two years old and under’ (Matthew
2:16). Jesus was then born in a stable. In a place far from
home, under threat from a king who had ordered a whole
generation of babies to be killed. And yet we have this image:
‘Silent night, holy night! All is calm, all is bright. Round yon
Virgin, Mother and Child. Holy infant so tender and mild, sleep
in heavenly peace, sleep in heavenly peace.’
I’m not sure how you are feeling at the moment. We certainly
all experience ups and downs. But, my prayer for you this
Christmas, is that you may know ‘heavenly peace’. That you
may find joy, hope and love, and a peace that comes from
none other than God Himself.
God bless, and merry Christmas!
Rev’d Gareth Hutchinson
December 2023
‘Silent night, holy night! All is calm, all is bright.
Round yon Virgin, Mother and Child. Holy infant so
tender and mild, sleep in heavenly peace, sleep in
heavenly peace.’
Christmas is coming! I was looking at a list of the
best loved Christmas carols in the Classicfm website
and came across the following in relation to Silent
Night… ‘Originally written in German, ‘Stille Nacht’
was composed in 1818 by Franz Xaver Gruber with
lyrics by Joseph Mohr, and was translated to English
in 1859. During the Christmas truce of 1914 during
World War I, the carol was sung simultaneously by
English and German troops.’ What an image that
story paints. In the midst of the long-endured
horror of gruesome trench warfare, a moment of
peace, of stillness.
It’s a story that is oddly appropriate to subject of
this carol. The situation that Jesus was born into
was similarly horrible. Matthew 2 (in the Bible)
gives the account of Magi, anticipating the birth of
Jesus the heavenly king, went to visit the current
earthly king, a man named Herod,