The first time I can remember singing “O Holy Night” was on a cold -- if not holy -- night.
I was 16 with a group of other young people from our church in our little West Texas county seat town of Sweetwater. We were walking from house to house, singing carols to our homebound members.
I have come to love “O Holy Night,” but it is not an easy song to sing, especially by untrained, unaccompanied voices in the cold night air. Some of the younger voices in our little caroling group also were changing and subject to cracking on higher notes -- notes, by the way, which are equally as high as the high notes in the American national anthem, “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
The ringleader of our choristers -- short, stocky, 14-year-old Bobby Reed -- was undaunted. Bobby always preferred to try something and fail, rather than not to try at all. So what if the notes went higher than any of the more familiar carols? We were braving the December chill to bring a little joy to some old folks at Christmas, not to give a perfect concert.
Bobby had learned to read music. He played the steel guitar and sang tenor in a voice which he managed to keep under control at his stage of early adolescence. He was also the leader of a pack of boys his age and younger in the church and in our neighborhood; some of them were with us that night. So he was game for singing anything on a winter’s night, including “O Holy Night.” If voices cracked and teeth chattered, so be it (By the way, the song is difficult for most folks, including adults, not just for teenagers out in the cold night air).
Although the song was new to some of our group that night in 1950, it had been around for more than a hundred years before we tried to sing it. The tune was written in France in 1847 for a new poem written by a friend of the composer. Then, the music and French lyrics crossed the Atlantic, where an American, John Dwight, wrote the English words in 1855. There were also anonymous adaptations of the American lyrics. 1
The song was in The Broadman Hymnal, widely used in Baptist churches across the South from the time it was published in 1940. 2 The songbooks were in the pew racks in most of the small rural churches we attended as Daddy moved from farm job to farm job before we moved to town. But the song wasn’t up toward the front of the hymnal with “Silent Night” and “It Came Upon the Midnight Clear.” So maybe small churches with no professional musicians didn’t try to sing it because it was “out of sight, out of mind.”
There probably were several reasons for putting “O Holy Night” toward the back of the book. In the first place, it was longer and took up two pages. Also, it was placed with other longer songs which might take a little extra effort to sing, used more often by the choir than by the congregation. Then, too, its stanzas are about twice as long as in carols we sing more readily. The Broadman was published in an effort to meet the needs of churches of all sizes. The songs in the back section even included Handel’s “Hallelujah” chorus from Messiah. Most people in the pew, regardless of the size of the congregation, wouldn’t attempt to sing that one.
The English words are not an exact translation from Frenchman Placide Cappeau’s “Cantique de Noel” (which means simply “Christmas Song”), but they are faithful to the thought of the original.
The tune and the words provide a majestic portrayal of the birth of Christ: “O holy night,/ the stars are brightly shining,/it is the night of the dear Savior’s birth!” His coming brings “a thrill of hope,” and weary souls rejoice as they anticipate “a new and glorious morn.” The French words point to midnight, “the solemn hour/When God as man descended among us.”
The second stanza in both languages focuses on the Wise Men or Magi. In English, they are “Led by the light of faith serenely beaming.” And the song admonishes these men, whom tradition calls kings, “Behold your King; before Him lowly bend!” The French points to “ancient times” when “a brilliant star/Conducted the Magi there from the orient.”
The third stanza in both languages stresses freedom Christ brings, specifically in ending slavery. The French version says, “The Redeemer has broken all shackles” because “He sees a brother where there was once but a slave.” The English says, “Truly He taught us to love one another/His law is love and His Gospel is peace. Chains shall He break for the slave is our brother/And in His Name all oppression shall cease.”
Among the revisions to John Dwight’s first American rendition, the work of an anonymous editor has come to my attention. There were only incidental changes in the first stanza. The second stanza replaced references to the Wise Men with mention of the shepherds. But the third stanza is changed dramatically. We could even say drastically. References to breaking the chains and the slave being our brother were deleted by that anonymous editor. The following words are substituted: “Long live His truth, and may it last forever/For in His name all discordant noise shall cease.”
Growing up in the rural Southwest in the era of racial segregation, I was not aware “O Holy Night” even had a third stanza. That stanza was not in our Broadman Hymnal, published by the Southern Baptist Convention. Many publications from various denominations in the South in those years were silent regarding segregation and the history of slavery.
I was an adult before I heard the third stanza. I remember being excited and pleased to hear these words. I wondered whether they might have been added during the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s in this country. But I learned that American lyricist Dwight’s version of the song included this third stanza, written in 1855, leading up to the Civil War, which began in 1861. This third stanza reflects Dwight’s aspiration as an advocate of the abolition of slavery.
Equal standing for all people is implicit in the biblical Christmas stories as the newborn Babe is visited first by grubby shepherds who come to the stable and then by men of wealth from another country who follow the star in their search for the newborn King of the Jews.
We see this inclusiveness borne out as Jesus grows up and launches His ministry. Although His ministry is largely among His fellow Jews, He crosses many man-made barriers: loving and healing physical untouchables such as lepers, social untouchables such as turncoat tax collectors, and racial and religious untouchables such as the Samaritan woman at the well and the Syrophoenician woman whose daughter was ill.
After Jesus ascends to heaven, Simon Peter, the often impetuous spokesman for the apostles, learns of God’s acceptance of all people. When he preaches to non-Jews in the household of the Roman centurion Cornelius, he sees them receive the blessing of God’s Holy Spirit. This leads Peter to declare that God is no respecter of persons:
And Peter opened his mouth and said: "Truly I perceive that God shows no partiality, but in every nation any one who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him (Acts 10:34-35).
The theme of breadth of outreach continues with Paul, who had been a persecutor of the church. Later, he becomes a special apostle to non-Jews, who were excluded in the early spread of the Gospel. In his letter to the Galatians, he declares, There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus (Galatians 3:28).
All this was foreshadowed on that Holy Night of the birth of the One who would draw all people to Himself through His death. In his third stanza of “O Holy Night,” Dwight makes this message explicit. This inclusive message was one our group of teenagers had not heard and probably could not have grasped fully if we had heard it on that cold -- if not holy -- night in Sweetwater.
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