SILENT NIGHT

Merry Christmas from The Ranch!  I’ve written a special Christmas message for you today, and we’ll return to our series on “The Top 20 Passages From The Bible” after the holidays...

 

Did you know that one of the most famous Christmas songs was written because of a broken organ?  It happened in a small church in Oberndorfer, Austria, back in 1818.  Their pump organ had given out, and they were going to be without music for their Christmas Eve service.  It was a calamity in the making.

 

But their pastor, Joseph Mohr, remembered a poem he had written two years earlier about that first “silent night” when baby Jesus was born.  He asked his friend, Franz Gruber, if the poem could be set to music, and as Gruber read the poem, a tune came to his mind.   That night, the church sang the song “Silent Night” for the very first time.

 

The story is told that several weeks later, a repairman came to their church from another village to work on the organ.  When it was fixed, Gruber tested it out by playing the tune he had written for their Christmas Eve service.  The repairman heard the tune and passed it on to others in his travels.

 

The song that was written because of a broken organ has now been sung worldwide.  Out of calamity, a song was born.