The Legend of "Silent Night"

Dad's most recent children's sermon:

(as the kids are coming up) Did I ever tell you that I used to have a Christmas dog? Do you know what a Christmas dog is? He was part pointer and part setter - a pointsetter. Now we'll have to see if I'm too embarrassed to go on.

We have some musical instruments in church today that aren't ordinarily in church. What are they? (guitars, banjo, mandolin) This reminds me of a Christmas legend. Do you know what a legend is? It's a story that's based on truth that may have been changed as it is told and re-told.

In 1818, Joseph Mohr was the assistant minister at a church in Austria. He decided that he wanted to write a new Christmas song. This may have been because the church organ was not working, but we don't know that for sure. So he called his friend Franz Gruber who was the choir director and played guitar. "Hey, Franz." (Mike as Franz) "Hey, Joe." Let me put this (imaginary) phone down because they didn't have phones at that time. (Mike said, "They just had to talk loud.") "Hey, Franz, I would like to write a new Christmas song. This would be different from most of the Christmas songs we sing in church because it would be played on guitar, and it would have German words. Do you want to help?" (Franz answers) "Sure."

So Joseph Mohr and Franz Gruber wrote a song they called "Stille Nacht". They wrote a guitar part and they wrote German words. They wanted to write banjo, mandolin, and bass guitar parts, but they didn't have enough to do everything they wanted before Christmas - it's a Christmas tradition. On Christmas Eve, 1818, at the midnight mass in (get this) St Nicholas Church in Oberndorf, Austria, they sang "Stille Nacht" to the music of one guitar.

The song slowly spread and became popular - first thru Germany, and then thru Europe, and then all over the world. It was translated into many languages. The English version of the song is "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer". No, it's "Silent Night". And let's sing it like they did in 1818, played on one guitar. (And we sang one verse.)