We made it.
For the last 25 days, we’ve dug deep and we’ve explored this story from so many angles. I can only pray it has served you and changed you in the way it served me and changed me to write these words for you.
I thought for a long time about how to end this journey together. And then I decided to leave you with something simple: the words of a Christmas song. A hymn. A carol.
O holy night the stars are brightly shining
It is the night of our dear Savior's birth
Long lay the world in sin and error pining
Till He appeared and the soul felt its worth
A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices
For yonder breaks a new glorious morn
Fall on your knees
O hear the angels' voices
O night divine
O night when Christ was born
O night divine, o night
O night divine
The words you just read were written in 1847 by the french writer Placide Cappeau de Roquemaure. He called upon his friend Adolphe Charles Adams.to turn this poem into a song.
The song gained power and steam throughout France in the late 1800s but when the church found out that the writer of the song was Jewish, they tried to bury the anthem. They banned it from churches. They did everything in their power to stop the words from spreading.
At this point, burying the song would prove to be impossible because it struck chords in the hearts of whoever heard it. The song had a power all on its own and it continued to gain momentum, despite being banned for over two decades in France.
The story goes that on Christmas Eve 1871, in the midst of the Franco-Prussian War and endless fighting between the armies of France and Germany, a French soldier emerged from the trenches.
He had no weapons in his hands. Both sides were surely puzzled. And in the midst of the battlefield, he began to sing the words of O Holy Night in German.
Both sides stopped. They lowered their weapons. For 24 hours, the two armies ceased all fighting-- all war-- to observe Christmas Day in peace with one another.
Nearly 40 years later, on Christmas Eve 1906, a man named Reginald Fessenden partnered with Thomas Edison to do something never done before: he became the first voice to ever be broadcasted over the radio.
Radio operators everywhere were confused and befuddled as Reginald read the Christmas story from Luke over the airwaves. He concluded the broadcast by picking up his violin and playing that same Christmas carol banned by the French and sung in the middle of the battlefield: O Holy Night.
It was the first song to ever be played on the radio.
Only God.
Only God could use a man who did not believe in his Son to pen the words of the world’s most notable Christmas carol.
Only God could stop the fighting on a battlefield to usher his children into divine community.
Only God could use an anthem about that one night in history– so holy and so different from any other night– to advance technology in ways we never thought possible.
Somehow this song surpassed all human boundaries and took over the world with its message:
For a long, long time, the world was weary and without hope. A lot of times it feels like it still is. But a Savior appeared in the middle of the night, born to a Virgin in the dark of a stable, and he ushered in a new era– an era where suddenly people of all kinds-- all ages, all races, all backgrounds, all walks of life-- could find worth to tie their souls to.
Something to rejoice over.
Something to hope for.
Something to die for.
A thrill of hope that could not be erased or blotted out of the history books.
This is my hope for you: that you know that your soul has eternal worth and I hope it can feel the weight of that worth. I hope you feel it so strongly. I hope you take time to imagine the choir of angels as they belt out into to the dark night, “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”
There’s no more waiting. There’s simply the invitation for all souls: come and see. Come and see what God has done.
Thank you for this honor of scripting my heart and spirit out to you over the last 25 days. I have definitely felt the worth of my soul through every typed sentence on these pages.
May you experience the rest your soul needs and the goodness of God over the next days. May you always know, without a doubt or fear, that you matter in this place. Your soul has always held the worth its longed and searched and hoped for-- thanks be to God.
xx.
Hannah B.
