A Not So Silent Night

The sound of Christmas

Was the night silent? Maybe miraculously so, but I doubt it.

Was the night holy? Yes, I would say so, earthly yet divine.

I remember sitting in a Christmas church service last year listening to the band sing Silent Night, when there was a sudden interruption to the melodic sound. A cry of a baby. It was loud and echoed throughout the auditorium. A mother, clearly embarrassed, tried to calm her child. People stared, they glared, they whispered. Eventually, she rushed out of the gathering to the lobby.

I wish she had stayed. I wish I could have told her that she was welcome. That the cry of her beloved child was not an interruption. That this “house of God” is not one for perfection. I wish I had run after her and said,

“Don’t you know? You are the sound of Christmas.”

Having given birth to two children myself, I find it very hard to believe that the night Mary had Jesus was silent. God entered into the rawness of humanity in the same way we all do, through blood and water and mess. Birth pains, sweat and tears, heavy breathing and hard pushing. A sacred mess bringing unseen life into view, to be held and heard and touched and loved. A baby’s cry announcing Christmas had come.

Oh, silent night how silent you were not.

With labor pains and baby screams he became one of us.

A baby’s cry the sound of Christmas.

Long before the first Christmas, King David wanted to build a temple for God. He sought to honor God by building him a place to live. But God said, “Should you build a house for me to dwell in? I am living in your midst.” And yet the temple was built. God put in a box. Until the day a baby’s cry broke that box open.

Temple walls, brought down by a baby’s cry.

God in our arms in our midst, nursing at her side as close as it gets.

A baby’s cry, the sound of Christmas. Yes, a baby’s cry, the sound of Christmas.

© Breanna Lowman 2020