Do you have a favorite Christmas song? Mine is “O Holy Night” and it is not just my favorite religious Christmas song, but my favorite over all others, religious or secular, classic movie standard, or pop music staple. Of course, the song has been recorded many times by many artists, so I must also disclose my all-time favorite version. And that is Cantique de Noel on the second Mannheim Steamroller Christmas album called A Fresh Aire Christmas.
On that album, the hymn is entirely instrumental. No vocal tells you to “fall on your knees” or to “hear the angel voices” or even that it is a “night divine.” But for me it isn’t necessary. I hear the words in my head as the sublime beauty of the arrangement progresses. And every Christmas season, every single one for the last thirty years, when I listen to it I get goosebumps, and prickles of joy run up and down my spine, and by the time the viola hits the high note at the climax of the arrangement I have tears absolutely streaming down my cheeks!
I don’t know why this particular version affects me so much, yet it does. For some reason it brings home to me the incredible nature of that night, the sublime magic and beauty of it, illuminating that very moment when God so loved our world that He gave his only Son to redeem us. This is why we fall on our knees! This is why the angels are singing! This is why there had never been, and would never be again, a night so infinitely divine!
PRAYER: Oh Lord, we thank you for sending your Son on that most holy of all nights, fulfilling Your promise that One would come to redeem us from our wickedness, to save us from our sins. Help us to remember and revere that Holy night, the night that changed absolutely everything throughout the world. Then, and forever more! AMEN.
GOD BLESS YOU.