December 17, 2025 - Good Morning! It’s Wednesday, December 17.
We continue, this morning, with our Christmas series, and with our focus on stories behind the carols. Today’s choice is one of my all-time favorites, and is, hands down, the most difficult carol to sing. It has a vocal range equal to our National Anthem, another notoriously challenging song. Today, our featured carol is “O Holy Night”.
Two days before The Cross, the disciples asked Jesus to tell them about the end of the world. His answer included the famous phrase, “there will be wars and rumors of wars”. That certainly describes our present age, but was also true 150 years ago, when France and Germany were at war. It was a brutal conflict that saw over 200,000 soldiers lose their lives. But during that year-long war, there was a single day of peace. It’s come to be known as The Christmas Truce. Here’s the story.
On December 25, 1870, the French troops were in their trenches on one side of the battlefield, the Germans on the other - awaiting the next round of fighting. And then, suddenly, a German soldier stood, and instead of firing a shot, he began to sing. He sang an Austrian carol “Stille Nacht”, which we know today as “Silent Night”. When he had finished, a French soldier stood and offered a song called “Cantique de Noel”, which literally just means “Christmas Song”.
Men from both sides began rising to their feet, and slowly approached each other in No Man’s Land. They shook hands, embraced, and exchanged simple gifts. In a time of war, it was an extraordinary moment of peace. That moment, unfortunately, was fleeting, and the conflict soon resumed. And, in the last century and a half, the world has suffered through war after war after war. We are left with the message of the peaceful Christmas song that the young French soldier sang -
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
Fall on your knees! O hear the angel voices!
O night divine, O night when Christ was born!
O night, O holy night, O night divine!
Meet you back here tomorrow,
David
cindertex50@yahoo.com
