By Danny Minton

A young couple set out on a journey ninety miles from home. Today, the trip would take a couple of hours, but for them to walk the distance would take several days, especially considering that the young woman was in the final days of pregnancy. Arriving at their destination, they find all the family guest rooms are full, and the only place left for them to stay is in a cave set up as a stable for the family livestock with only a wall separating them from the animals. One evening, among the feed and straw for the animals, a young girl gave birth to a baby boy. The young man searched around and found an unused feeding trough, and placing some straw and a cloth over it, he made a bed for the newborn child. 

While it was quiet at the stable, it was a different story in the nearby pastures where shepherds settled their sheep for the evening. As they settled their flocks, the night around them became bright, and standing before them was an angel of the Lord. Bowing in fear, the angel told them not to be afraid, but the messenger let them know that a baby who would be the Savior of the world was born nearby in the small town of Bethlehem. Then, all around them were multitudes of angels praising God. When the angels left, and once again they were in the darkness, they decided that they must go and see what the angels had proclaimed. They found the baby and family as the messenger had told them and shared the experience with those there. They returned to their flocks that night, praising God. A night they would never forget.

The year was 1847 when Placide Cappeau sat in a stagecoach on his way to the capital of France and read the story of Christ’s birth in the Gospel of Luke. Placide, a wine commissionaire and poet in a small French town, was asked by a parish priest to pen a poem for Christmas Mass. Placide, one who rarely attended worship services, was honored to be asked to help and eager to help. After reading the story of the birth of Christ, he put pen to paper, and by the time the stagecoach reached the capital, he had written a poem, “Cantique de Noel” (Hymn of Christmas). 

Placide felt so close to the story and how his poem presented that special night that he decided it needed to be set to music. He approached a Jewish friend, Adolphe Charles Adams, about putting the words to music. Adams hesitated to work on a song about a religion he did not follow and a man he did not look to as Savior. However, as a friend to Cappeau and because of the poem’s beauty that touched him, he decided to write the music. The song was sung on Christmas Eve and became a favorite, finding its way into other French Christmas Services. 

Cappeau would later leave the church, and with this and the knowledge of the music being written by someone Jewish, “Cantique de Noel” was considered non-religious and banned from being sung by higher authorities. However, the song became a favorite and continued to be sung by the people. A small act by a Unitarian Minister in Massachusetts a decade later would bring the hymn to light in the United States and on its way to being one of the most beloved Christmas hymns. John Sullivan Dwight found the song and the French lyrics haunting and touching his heart. The song which had been known as “Hymn of Christmas,” “Christmas Carol,” and “Midnight, Christmas” so touched Dwight he decided to translate it and publish it in his “Journal of Music.” It was published again in other papers and included in songbooks around America. The words touched Christians and especially abolitionists, with the last verse fitting the struggle in the country as it touched on the issue of slavery.

On December 24, 1906, Reginald Fessenden broadcast the first long-distance AM radio program from Brant Rock, Massachusetts. The program was heard by ships in the Atlantic to the Caribbean. It included a poem and reading of the birth of Christ from the second chapter of Luke. It also included two songs played by Fessenden on the violin. The first song played over the air that night in 1906 was one a priest had asked a wine commissionaire to write and whose music was composed by a Jewish teacher. None would be alive to know that the song requested by an unknown parish priest would one day be one of the most beautiful of Christmas hymns.

“O, Holy Night, the stars are brightly shining. It is the night of our dear Savior’s birth.”

Danny Minton is a former Elder and minister at Southern Hills Church of Christ