It was not a silent night.
It was a holy night.
All was not calm
In labor far from home
With not so much as a bed to call her own.
Have you been at a birth?
They are not calm.
All was not bright.
He was born in the night,
Surrounded by animals was Mary’s cursed plight.
“In pain,” Eve was told,
That’s the point.
She was a virgin, he was a child.
He was an infant. Was he tender and mild?
Is it a sin for a baby to cry and wail?
Thrust into a world of darkness does he not flail?
He knew utter peace and light for all eternity
Should “mild” be the word
To describe the way he arrived?
Did he sleep that night in heavenly peace?
Isn’t that what he left behind to bear our griefs?
He slept in the sorrow of the world,
It was cold and dark in the trough where he was curled.
Herod sent his soldiers out to drench their robes in the blood of babies,
Joseph ran and snatched his newborn babe
From dripping teeth of Hades.
Yes, heaven’s glories streamed,
But because they flowed towards the cross.
This was why he came: to make our gain his loss.
But the heavenly hosts did come to sing,
Halleluiah to the death-bound King!
The Anointed One, the Savior of the world has indeed been born,
And praise is all that’s fitting
To the one who bears our scorn.
Love’s pure light?
Never brighter shone.
But not because of silence, far from his heavenly home.
This was the dawn of redeeming grace, the sun was finally rising.
But there was nothing that made us look on him,
No radiant beams surprising.
Jesus, Lord at thy birth,
Lord of love and infinite worth,
Because you left the calm of joy and glory,
To enter darkness, to redeem our story,
Because you left the radiant beams behind,
To come and make your blood our wine,
Oh Lord, because you bore our sorrow,
We will bask with you in glorious beams
Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow.
It was not a silent night.
It was a holy night.
