was it really a silent night?

While I was committing “mortal sin” days ago, that is, eating to my hearts content pork liempo just across the plaza of Jaro, a little girl without any warning came to my table and rendered to me what at first sounded like a kindergarten child reciting, or should I say mumbling, her first poetry. It took me a while to realize that she was singing a Christmas carol, a carol all of us should have known immediately, if it had been sung intelligibly that is: Silent Night, Holy Night. Realizing that she was asking for something I opened my wallet and gave her 20 pesos, not because the song was worth 20 pesos but as a teacher I am expected to recognize and give some credit at least to effort expended, which I should honestly say was worth 19 pesos with one peso going for the song. Unluckily for me this little girl was not just interested with money, she also got interested with my pork liempo. I argued of course but sensing that she would not leave my table empty handed I gave her half of what was left. It was not really heroic of me to do that for in the psychology of sin the guilt is lessened when one invites others to participate, just like Eve inviting Adam to eat with her the apple, and besides, the guilt is exceedingly assuaged when you wrap it with the virtue of generosity albeit a false one, if not a forced one.


This event is being recalled tonight because of the song of that girl – silent night, holy night, all is calm, all is bright. I am quite familiar with the origins of that song because when I was first year high school in the seminary during a tableau presentation for the bishop, representatives were taken from each class to offer the so called gift of the world to the child Jesus. I was asked to offer the original German composition of Silent Night – Stille Nacht in German, translated in all major languages all over the world, as a tribute to the child born in the manger. The problem then was, how does a German look like? Somebody from the higher year suggested a skirt and that was how I ended that night having garnered the most applause for wearing the checkered skirt of the Assumption uniform which I borrowed from my sister. To muddle further the nationality I represented, they gave me a red flag and tied on my arm a red ribbon which in retrospect now seemed like I was representing Communist China who came all the way from Scotland bringing to the child Jesus a German Christmas Carol. Well I really don’t know what inspired Joseph Mohr in composing the melodramatic and sentimental lyrics. Well probably he was looking at a peaceful nativity scene while he composed this song. Probably he was sitting by his warm couch listening to the fire crackling in his hearth in that cold winter night after conducting the Christmas Service of his church. The song is both sentimental and nostalgic, inspiring the artist in all of us to further propagate the imagery in our serene belens complete with beautiful Christmas trees, bright parols and wonderful boughs of holly, aptly depicting that supposedly peaceful and silent night when Christ was born.
But was it really a silent night back then during that first Christmas in Bethlehem? Yes it must have been a holy night, no question about it, but can we truly say that all was calm during that night? Can we really say that all was bright not just in the seemingly illogical sense of having a bright night in the bleak of winter, but also in its symbolic metaphor of having promising days ahead?
We have romanticized Christmas many, many times over, with angels hovering about gracefully in the sky, with shepherds peacefully watching their flocks and with the sweet, sweet scene of a lovely belen accompanied by lovely Christmas carols. But the first Christmas was not of silence and peace or of angels serenely gliding, hovering in the sky. No, it was about a virgin disturbed by the announcement of an angel that she would give birth to a son. It was also about a soon to be husband confused, troubled and terribly upset by a pregnant fiancée. It was about an edict that messed up the usual daily routine of a humble town called Nazareth, and about the whole city of Jerusalem troubled by the coming of the magi from the east, and of eerie cries when innocent babes were massacred, and of a confused newly wed husband, with a wife recently burdened by childbirth in a place not really suited for delivering a child, trudging the long and hard road to Egypt to escape death.
If peace was uttered on the first Christmas it was uttered as a prayer and a wish, a wish to those on whom God’s favor rests – a wish for those who would soon be disturbed by events beyond their control. If there was anything that made sense on this first Christmas Eve, if there was anything that really made sense, it was the greeting of the angel to the shepherds, the same greeting uttered to Mary and the same greeting twice repeated to Joseph – Do not be afraid. Do not be afraid. Afraid of what? Afraid of the time when God intervenes in our lives, afraid of the time when God comes into our lives, afraid of the time when God pursues us like a lion hungry for prey, for when God intervenes chaos comes, when God intervenes the status quo is disturbed, peace is disrupted, and order becomes unsettled.
Do not be afraid Mary. A virgin about to be married is to be with child. Isn’t that disconcerting? How will Mary explain this to Joseph, not to mention her family and inquisitive neighbors? You cannot hide a pregnancy, can you? And yet Mary said Yes, she obeyed God and from then, from this confusion, her life was ordered by God.
Do not be afraid Joseph. He is to take Mary as his wife fathering the baby he has nothing to do with in the first place. Do not be afraid Joseph. He is to travel to Egypt with Mary and the new born child at the back of an ass – a thing which many husbands will never dare do even with the luxury of jet planes and wheelchairs on airports. And yet he trusted, Joseph surrendered to God and from then on, from this disturbance, his life was ordered by God.
Do not be afraid, shepherds. I announce to you the birth of the messiah and the sign that he is the messiah is this – an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. Now that’s the height of stupidity no one can really comprehend. In their naivety the shepherds may believe an infant lying in a manger, but a messiah, a savior, born in a manger? a king lying in a manger? That’s too much to be asked to believe in, isn’t it? And yet the shepherds trusted, they believed, and all of them came to see the babe. And from then on, from this incomprehension, from this unbelievable plot, their lives were ordered by God.
Be familiar with the confusion of Christmas, be at home with the chaos of the first Christmas. Because that is how it is when God intervenes in our lives. That is how it is when God chooses to come into our lives. It is he who chooses to come, not we coming to him, but he coming to us, in his own time, in his own way, in his inscrutable ways. That is why Advent is waiting, waiting, being ready for God.
When God comes, chaos comes. There is a need to enter this chaos willingly and wholeheartedly, there is a need to feel agitated and disturbed, there is a need to welcome its confusion, so that God can speak his creative word to us, so that God can re-order our lives according to his will. It is only in seeing God’s coming as such, that the inscrutable ways of God can make sense, not that we can comprehend the inscrutable, but that we can accept it with faith. It is only through this that Christmas, however it is celebrated, with whatever event it is accompanied with, that one experiences true joy – a joy that can only burst itself into a dance – the shepherds dance – a dance that expresses the joy of knowing even without comprehending, the joy of believing that God has finally come to re-order our lives, to sort out our priorities, to rewrite our stories, to refashion our values, to reset our goals. The waiting is over and the expectations are being fulfilled at last.
This reflection came to me when I began to question God at the timing of my father’s death. He died just two hours after that little girl sung “Silent night, holy night, all is calm, all is bright.” I doubt if it was really such on that first Christmas eve. That is why I can still relate with Christmas, with the first Christmas. A joyful Christmas.