Senior Living

In 1983 I wrote a play called “Stille Nacht” which is German for “Silent Night.”

It was published in the Church Musician magazine in 1984 as a play for 2 people to tell the story of how Silent Night was written.

The 2 characters are Father Joseph Moore, the parish priest of Oberdorf, Austria in 1818, and Franz Gruber, the church organist.

Being a minister a music, I played the part of Gruber.

I managed to get 5 different Baptist pastors and 1 Gideon throughout my career to play the part of Father Moore.

The plot for the story is that the song was composed just prior to the town’s traditional Christmas Eve midnight mass. The church organ had broken down because, as legend has it, mice had eaten into the bellows.

Meanwhile, a local woodcutter’s wife had just given birth, and Father Moore was asked to come and pronounce a blessing over the child.

Walking home amid the silence of a snow-covered landscape, Moore pondered the similarities of shepherds being summoned to welcome the arrival of the Christ-child. Joseph, like the woodcutter, was a carpenter.

That experience caused Moore to write a poem called Silent Night. He then asked Franz Gruber to set it to music with just the guitar since they had no organ.

They sang it together as a

duet that Christmas Eve.

When an organ repairman finally arrived a

short while later, he saw

the song and carried it

back to his own town.

Little by little the song

was learned, sung, and

shared until it became

one of the world’s most-loved and best-known

carols ever.

Even though it can’t be proven, a couple hungry church mice might be the reason we have that song!

Next Week: Let’s raise an Ebenezer!

Dan Williams is the senior adult pastor at Lexington Baptist Church.