December 16, 2024 - Good Morning! It’s Monday, December 16.
This is Day Six of our “Twelve Days of Christmas” series. The final one will come on Christmas Eve. I hope you’re enjoying these little looks at Christmas characters, culture, and carols. This morning we take a look at a carol story with enough drama for a week of devotions.
When you Google the story behind “O Holy Night”, you’ll find lots of interesting information. Here’s a taste -
*It was once banned by the Catholic Church
*On Christmas Eve, 1872, it stopped the French-German War
*During the U.S. Civil War it was a rallying song for abolitionists
*Mariah Carey’s version went platinum, selling over a million units
My favorite part of the story behind this carol happened in 1906. Reginald Fessenden was a scientist who had once worked with the great inventor Thomas Edison. But on Christmas Eve, 1906, he was preparing to unveil an invention of his own. He had fashioned a new kind of generator, a device that could generate, could transmit sound. Today we call it “radio”. On that evening, from his lab in New Jersey, Fessenden spoke into a microphone and was heard by anyone with a wireless radio receiver. At that time, however, that would have been mainly sailors on ships along the Atlantic Seaboard. But these men were accustomed to only hearing a series of clicks, a code, Morse code. On that evening, they heard a voice, a voice reading these words -
“And it came to pass in those days, that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed...”
Imagine being a lonely sailor, away from home on the holidays, and suddenly, out of nowhere, hearing a voice - it must have seemed like a Christmas miracle! For the first time in the history of the world, sound was being transmitted through the air, was being “broadcast”. And when Reginald Fessenden finished reading from Luke 2, he picked up his violin, and began to play a beautiful melody that had been composed 60 years before, composed to accompany these words -
O holy night, the stars are brightly shining. It is the night of the dear Savior’s birth
Long lay the world in sin and error pining, ‘til He appeared and the soul felt it’s worth
A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices, for yonder breaks a new and glorious morn
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
When you listen to the radio today, or stream a video, or search the internet - when you access any broadcast media - remember that the first sound to go out over the airways was this song, a song of hope, a song of Christmas.
Meet you back here tomorrow,
David
cindertex50@yahoo.com
