Silent Night
Pastor Todd Blansit
New Life Church
December 24, 2023

In 1816, an Austrian priest named Josef Mohr wrote the words to a Christmas carol for his own congregation to be sung on Christmas Eve.

“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.”

These words have shaped the way we imagine that first Christmas. It was idyllic. It was lovely. It was wonderful. It was joyous. It was perfect.

The challenge for us is that our own Christmases seldom measure up to this ideal. They’re not perfect.

The word tabernacle is not used in English except in a religious context. For this reason, it is a mysterious word to many, but it is really nothing more than a fancy or traditional word for “tent” (from the Latin tabernaculum, “tent”). In the Old Testament, the English word tabernacle usually translates the Hebrew mishkan (“dwelling place”).

Immanuel means that God understands what we are going through. It shows us that God doesn’t just want us to follow the rules and get it right. Rather, He wants a relationship with us, and He is willing to do anything to make way for that to happen.

Philip Yancey wrote this in The Question That Never Goes Away, “For whatever reason, God has chosen to respond to the human predicament not by waving a magic wand to make evil and suffering disappear but by absorbing it in person. ‘The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us,’ wrote John in the prologue to his Gospel. In the face of suffering, words do not suffice. We need something more, the Word made flesh, actual living proof that God has not abandoned us.

Just because things seem silent doesn’t mean God isn’t moving.