O Holy Night

You are listening to a message from Thrive Community Church, a church located in Southwest Florida. For more info, visit us at thrive-fl.org And so he wrote it. Now what's interesting is Capoe is not only not a Christian, he was pretty well what people would say a hellraiser. Okay, even in that day and age, he wrote this poem and he loved it so much he got another friend of his who wasn't a Christian to write the music. And from there on, it just exploded across France. And before you know it, everybody's singing this song. Well, a couple of other facts about this song. About 50 years later in 1906, there was a man named Fessenden, Reginald Fessenden. He was a 33-year-old at the time that he did this. Reginald Fessenden, a 33-year-old, I'd say Renaissance man in Canada. And in 1906, on Christmas Eve, he scrounged around in his garage and broadcast and put together the first AM broadcast in the history of the world. And what he read that night on Christmas Eve was Luke chapter 2. In those days, Caesar Augustus, yada, yada, yada, yada. And after that, he took out his violin, a Renaissance man, and he played O Holy Night. It's the first song that was ever broadcast in the world over AM radio. And this week again, I saw on the Washington Post a story I've heard a few times before. And that is in 1914, just a few years after that, World War II, that trench warfare was going on. It's known as the Christmas Eve Truce. Have you ever heard of it? Do you know how it started? It started when the British on one side in their trenches, you know, all hunkered down, and the Germans on the other side hunkered down in their trenches and in their parapets and everything else. The Germans started to sing, guess what? O Holy Night. And though it was probably in German when they sang it, the British knew exactly what that tune was and what was going on. And they peeked up and they saw all in the parapets over on the German side, Christmas trees with candles in them lit. And then all of a sudden, they heard across no man's land, no shoot, we no shoot. Well, that's probably about as good as the English that they knew. And all of a sudden, that evening, both sides went out into the no man's land, sang songs, celebrated. Interesting, isn't it? This is what the Washington Post then said about that. The Christmas Truce was brief, spontaneous ceasefire that spread up and down the Western Front of World War I. It's also a symbol of the peace on earth and the goodwill towards humans so often lacking, not just on our battlefront, but in our everyday lives. So true. O Holy Night. The stars are brightly shining. I'm not sure if they've shown. We don't know what time of the year it actually happened. We do know a few things from the Gospel of Luke. And the reason why this night of all nights is so important, why you are here today, why I am here, I think it brings up a lot of emotional memories for us. I don't know about you, but for me it does. Because when I was a child, I was in a lot of, can you guess, Christmas productions. Were you in some of those? Have you been in any yet? You've got to do it. It's a lot of fun. And the parents love it. Now it's phone is out. It used to be video cameras and everything. And these things go on. And so this is an example, and I think there's actually sound on this too, an example of the Christmas production that went on just in Tennessee just recently. Yeah, Mary's got the baby sheep in a headlock over the baby Jesus. Thankfully it was a doll, right? Can you imagine? All right. Yeah. Somehow that went off the rails, didn't it? I don't know if you saw that. That was just on the news a little while ago. I love it when kids reenact that. But I think also at the same time when those reenactments happen, we sometimes lose the focus of what this is all about. I've got all these emotional memories about back then. But do you realize the reality of Luke chapter 2 in this, Oh Holy Night was not so wonderful that we'd all go like, wow, isn't that great? For example, you know, when my wife Lisa was going to give birth to both Justin and Emma, there was a lot of preparation. Like, you know, Lamaze classes, right? And not only that, we went to the hospital. What a thought, right? And I found out, especially with Emma, we planned it ahead with the obstetrician when it was going to happen at all because Emma was it. We were done. And you're worth it, honey. You were worth it. And I found out epidurals are wonderful. That's what I've been told. I could have used one myself probably. But we had all of that. And then compare that, and it's rough enough when you give birth to a child in a hospital with all of that, compare that to the fact that Joseph, I don't think, had a plan at all. He had his fiancée, Mary, travel with him. I'm sorry we don't have the donkey in the story. But a hundred miles, it says, to Bethlehem. A hundred miles. Can you imagine that, ladies? And then they get there, and there's no plan. He doesn't...