the origin of "Silent Night" - the sequel
Posted by: OKtogo1954 <OKtogo1954@...>
Matt
BreakPoint Commentary - December 24, 1998
>The Broken Organ - The Story of "Silent Night"
>
>If I asked you who Josef Mohr and Franz Gruber were,
>chances are, you'd likely be stumped. But if I asked
>you to sing "Silent Night," the hymn Mohr and Gruber
>wrote one long-ago Christmas Eve, I'm willing to bet
>you could sing all three verses. The circumstances
>surrounding the birth of "Silent Night" offer a
>valuable lesson about trusting God to meet our needs.
>
>The setting is Oberndorf, Austria, a tiny Alpine
>village near Salzburg. It was December 23, 1818, and
>the new village priest, 26-year-old Josef Mohr, had a
>problem. The organ in his church had broken down-and
>the repairman would not arrive until after Christmas.
>
>As Evelyn Bence recounts in her book, Spiritual
>Moments with the Great Hymns, the broken organ
>represented a real crisis. "As planned and
>practiced," Bence writes, "the music for the
>Christmas Eve service fell apart if the organ fell
>silent. The service-the liturgical highlight of the
>winter-was in shambles. What to do now?"
>
>Mohr had just 24 hours to solve the problem. But that
>night he decided to put his problem aside for a few
>hours, while he attended a Nativity pageant put on by
>a neighboring town.
>
>As Mohr watched the amateur actors reenact the simple
>Christmas story, he was deeply inspired. Afterward
>the young pastor hiked into the hills to a favorite
>spot overlooking Oberndorft. As Mohr beheld the
>lights of the slumbering village below, his mind
>began filling with the words he would fashion into a
>poem: "Silent Night, Holy Night, all is calm, all is
>bright."
>
>Mohr quickly made his way home. That night, working
>by lamplight, he wrote three stanzas to a hymn he
>titled Stille Nacht.
>
>The next morning, Mohr showed the poem to the church
>organist, composer Franz Gruber. Gruber quickly
>composed a melody, writing his arrangement for
>guitar.
>
>As Henry Gariepy says in his book, Songs in the
>Night, "Mohr and Gruber sang their hymn that
>Christmas Eve to the accompaniment of Gruber's guitar
>and a choir of young girls . . . Little could the
>simple worshipers imagine the miracle of song taking
>place . . . that night. It was reminiscent of a
>birth, centuries before, that also took place in the
>humblest of villages, ultimately to have an impact
>upon the whole world."
>
>When the organ repairman arrived he was so taken with
>"Silent Night" that he asked for a copy. He spread
>the hymn throughout neighboring villages. Folksingers
>carried "Silent Night" across Austria's borders and
>around the world.
>
>The broken organ that had caused Mohr so much anxiety
>led directly to the creation of the most beloved
>Christmas carol of all time. It's a reminder that-as
>Paul tells us in Philippians-God will supply our
>every need according to His riches. And that includes
>the need for Christmas music when the organ breaks
>down.
>
>Do you and I have the faith to trust God to meet our
>needs-even when disaster threatens?
>
>Jacob Mohr and Franz Gruber did. And ever since,
>their last-minute hymn has glorified the "holy
>infant, so tender and mild."
>
>(c) 1998 Prison Fellowship Ministries