The Episcopal vicar Phillips Brooks was moved by his visit to the village of Bethlehem in 1865 – the same year America’s Civil War finally ground to a halt.
Standing in the traditional Field of the Shepherds, he watched the shadows of night fall upon the ancient streets.
Three years later he transformed his memories into four verses that became O Little Town of Bethlehem.
Brooks asked his church organist, Lewis Redner, to write a tune simple enough for Sunday School kids to sing. He even promised Redner that if the tune were any good he would give it the formal name “St. Lewis.”
The organist had no compelling ideas until the night before the service in which the song was supposed to debut. Awaking from a deep sleep, he scribbled the familiar notes. Then he fell back to sleep without even sounding them out.
Brooks loved the melody so much that he kept his promise. But as a concession to Redner’s humility, he christened the tune “St. Louis” instead of “St. Lewis.”
With its lilting, peaceful phrases, O Little Town of Bethlehem is one of the gentlest of all the traditional carols.
But let’s do a reality check. Would it really have been accurate to say of Bethlehem, when Jesus was born, “how still we see thee lie”?
Bethlehem was not a peaceful place when Jesus came into the world. That’s because of Herod the Great, who had ruled Judea for almost 40 years.
Herod was a monster. He had either 10 or 11 wives (apparently it’s possible to lose count), and in a suspicious rage executed the only one he really loved. He also ordered the violent deaths of one of his mothers-in-law, two brothers-in-law, two of his sons, and even his old barber, who had quietly spoken up on behalf of the boys.
Caesar Augustus once said, with disgust: “It is better to be Herod’s pig [ous in Greek] than Herod’s son [huios].” It’s an excellent pun, not only because the words sound so much alike, but because the emperor figured that since Herod had Jewish roots, a pig was more likely to avoid slaughter than his own children.
Ethnically, Herod was half-Jewish and half-pagan. The Jews despised his pagan pedigree, while the Romans disdained his Jewishness. His life and thus his reign were overshadowed by insecurity.
That’s why Herod didn’t spare the children of other people, either. We know from the Gospel of Matthew that he was so paranoid about reports that a new “king of Israel” had been born in Bethlehem that he ordered the extermination of every male infant in the vicinity.
No one has yet written a Christmas carol about the Slaughter of the Innocents. But that tragedy looms in the background of the Messiah’s arrival in the world.
In his book Who Is This Man? John Ortberg writes, concerning Jesus: “He entered the world with no dignity. He would have been known as a mamzer, a child whose parents were not married. All languages have a word for mamzer, and all of them are ugly.
“His cradle was a feeding trough. His nursery mates had four legs. He was wrapped in rags. He was born in a cave, targeted for death, raised on the run.” Just as families today are fleeing murderers in Sudan, the Congo, and Sierra Leone, Jesus’ family fled a murderous head of state under cover of darkness.
The end of Brooks’ first verse is powerful: “the hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.”
There are reasons to be afraid in every age, in every place, in every heart. But when hopes and fears intersect in the person of Jesus, hope wins.
Every December this carol reminds us that even in a scary world that can break our hearts, “where meek souls will receive him still,” God offers his gift of peace:
O little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie! Above thy deep and dreamless sleep the silent stars go by.
Yet in thy dark streets shineth the everlasting Light; the hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.
How silently, how silently the wondrous gift is given! So God imparts to human hearts the blessings of his heaven.
No ear may hear his coming, but in this world of sin, where meek souls will receive him still, the dear Christ enters in.
O holy Child of Bethlehem! Descend to us, we pray; cast out our sin and enter in, be born in us today.
We hear the Christmas angels the great glad tidings tell; O come to us, abide with us, our Lord Emmanuel.
Here’s a quiet version of a carol by Reawaken Hymns that helps us remember that the true Light shines.
Even when the world feels dark.
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