If you attended the Candlelight last Sunday you heard Minuit, Chrétiens sung by Octavio. Next Tuesday’s Christmas Eve service will feature the English version of this beloved carol.
The original title was simply Cantique de Noël (Christmas Hymn) but it has become known by the first two words of the French text. The music was composed by Adolphe Adam in 1847, to words written a few years earlier by poet and wine merchant (nice work if you can get it) Placide Cappeau. The English lyrics came in 1855, courtesy of John Sullivan Dwight, an American who went to Harvard Divinity School to become a Unitarian minister, but changed his mind and decided to focus on music, and writing.
Importantly, he was also an abolitionist. He most likely chose this particular hymn to translate because of the reference to slavery that was already there in the French version:
Le rédempteur a brisé toute entrave:
La terre est libre et le ciel est ouvert.
Il voit un frère où n'était qu'un esclave;
L'amour unit ceux qu'enchaînait le fer…
By 1855, Africans were no longer being brought across the Atlantic to be sold as slaves, and slavery had been abolished in all Northern U.S. states, but it was still a huge institution in the Southern states and a major economic driver for the whole country. While European and New World countries had been steadily abolishing slavery since the mid-1700s, the U.S. instead brought in regressive legislation like the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. The country would soon be thrown into Civil War over the issue, and Dwight’s lyrics would become not just an expression of Christian faith, but a rallying cry.
The first two verses in English bring the listener straight to Bethlehem as if we are the shepherds: Led by the light of faith serenely beaming/ With glowing hearts by his cradle we stand. The third verse snaps us back to the present where we are reminded what this birth means for our lives, and to explicitly tie Jesus’ message to abolitionism:
Truly he taught us to love one another;
His law is love, and his gospel is peace.
Chains shall he break, for the slave is our brother
And in his name all oppression shall cease…
This message is no less urgent today than it was 160 years ago. As we go into the year 2020, slavery and human trafficking still exist in our world. All sorts of oppression are still with us. O Holy Night tells us that Jesus came to be a friend to us in all our trials; but it also reminds us that Christianity requires us to stand up for justice, because none of us is free unless we all are.
See you on Christmas Eve,
Amy