I always loved the feeling of driving home after Christmas Eve services when I was a kid.  We lived on a farm several miles outside of town so it took about twenty minutes to get home. It was dark, the stars were shining and the moon was bright and both glistened off the snow that blanketed the empty fields. It was often quite cold and I especially loved it when it was a windless night and all was still.  It gave me such a feeling of tranquility and love. The song “Silent Night” would come to mind, but even more meaningful to me was the song, “In the Bleak Midwinter” that we also sang at services. I thought it was a perfect song that reflected my surroundings as we traveled home.

I do remember thinking however, there would not have been snow in Bethlehem, the ground and water would not have been frozen, but it probably was a bleak winter night for the shepherds guarding their sheep and poor Mary having her baby in a stable. Certainly not an ideal birthing room. But the birth happened as was foretold and all was as it should be.

When I did some research on this hymn’s origin, I discovered it was written by poet Christina Rossetti in England in 1876 and was put to music in 1906, twelve years after her death. Christina might have been writing about winter in England or describing the trying times of the people living there at the time she wrote this. Poetically, she could have been writing about how Jesus came into the cold, hard and desolate world. With the dawn of his birth, He brought us the gifts of calm, peace and quiet which reflected the sentiments I experienced riding home on Christmas Eve. It was a perfect time to focus on the meaning of Jesus’s birth, life and death to me personally.

The last verse tells of the shepherds and the Magi’s gifts to the Christ child. It then begs the question of what we as common people could give Him in return.  The song ends with the assurance no matter how bad things are for us, how stressed we are, how our resources might be lacking and how empty we feel, we can still give Him our hearts.  That is the best gift we can offer God who loves us unconditionally and shows this love through the gift of the birth of His Son and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Thanks be to God!

Patty