Silent Night

 

For me, music is the center of Christmas.  Music brings me to presence, it gets inside of me - or comes from inside of me, I don’t know which.  Or both.  In music, inside and outside meet.  

Just as music is the center of Christmas, Silent Night is the center of the music.  Silent Night marks the pivot point between Advent and Christmas, the time of quiet and stillness in which Christ steals into the physical plane.  

The service begins with full lighting.  The church is full of wreaths and boughs of pine and red ribbons, and maybe candles at each pew.  Sometimes there is incense, just enough to get the scent without causing too much sneezing. 

We open with a vigorous hymn:  “O Come All Ye Faithful,” usually.  Then comes “Angels We Have Heard on High,”  and the readings and the sermon.  There is another hymn before the Gospel, and an anthem before the communion.   As we move into the Great Thanksgiving and turn toward communion we keep singing, ancient words of praise.  Then, with a little quiet organ music, we go forward to receive the Body and Blood of this newly born Christ.  It’s all magical, capturing even the people who don’t really believe the official version; they can feel and hear that something special is happening.

But for me, the peak of the service comes after communion.  We each return to our pew and kneel in silence. The lights are turned down, or off.   In the quiet and dark, candles are lit.  We each received a small candle on entering the church, and now the flame is passed from person to person.  We hold our candles, and we sing “Silent Night.”  It is slow and gentle, moving up and down the scale, floating up and pausing.  It’s like holding your breath, only you’re singing.

“Love’s own true light.” “Radiant beams from thy holy face.”  “Sleep in heavenly peace.”  Light and sound come together.  I can see the light, as gentle as the sound.  I can feel the presence of God, within me and around me.  I could kneel here forever, but now it’s time to go.

  After Silent Night has been sung, the closing prayer signals a return to normal time.  Our breath is moving again now, as we prepare for “Joy to the World” and its busier descant.  There’s a place for all of these moods, all of these songs.  Send me out with joy and alleluias; but first gather me in with silence and peace.  I’ve had my moment, and I carry it in my heart until I can get home and be quiet again.

Sometimes I’ve been in places where they don’t sing Silent Night after communion.  It’s never felt right to me.  Silent Night is for this moment, this quiet and peace before we stand and prepare to leave.  Time stands still here.

When we don’t sing Silent Night after communion, I go home in peace anyway.  I stand out under the stars, and I sing it softly to myself, to the universe.  That’s the real moment of Christmas, where the stars and the song join together.  Heaven opens, and angels pour down.