Edited by Jim McCrory, Saturday 27 December 2025 at 13:24
O Holy Night: Hope For a Tired World
You would need to have lived in a cave not to have heard O Holy Night these past few weeks. It seeps into December everywhere—through radios, supermarket speakers, and half-open church doors—moving like a gentle air: uninvited, but welcome; familiar rather than demanding. Often, we don’t listen closely. It plays while we shop and drive, while our minds drift toward the ordinary and the heavy. I’ve heard it all my life, and much of it tells a story I already know.
“O holy night! The stars are brightly shining… Long lay the world in sin and error pining.”
A tired world. A waiting world. None of that surprises me.
But then comes the line that always stops me, as though a loving hand has been placed quietly on my shoulder:
“Till He appeared, and the soul felt its worth.”
That is the moment when appreciation gives way to feeling—when the song no longer plays in the background and I stop half-listening. There are times in life when we feel the ache of being less than we should be. Some people carry that ache for years. Some carry it so quietly that even those closest to them never see it.
Yesterday, my wife and I visited Glasgow, including the carnival at Glasgow Green. It carried me back to childhood in Govan: hard winters, cold streets, dark tenement closes. Winter could feel unforgiving then. But every year the lorries would roll into town, and with them the circus, clowns, elephants and the carnival at the Kelvin Hall. They arrived like sunlight breaking into the gloom. For us Glasgow children, it mattered more than we could ever explain.
On the walk back, we met a man sitting alone and asked what he was doing that day. He told us he’d been to the Scottish Exhibition Centre for the carnival. “But it had no ghost train,” he added quickly. Then, with sudden urgency, he asked, “Did yours have a ghost train?”
As we spoke, I realised he had learning difficulties. The question returned again and again, unchanged. And in that repetition, I sensed something fragile and like us all, desiring connection.
I found myself wondering, unsteadily, about his sense of worth. About how often he might be overlooked. We told him we were Christians, though he never quite grasped what we meant. “I’ll need to go to the ghost train at Glasgow Green,” he said, returning to the one thing that mattered. He was kind, loving and he shook both our hands on departing. Afterwards, I said to my wife, “We should have taken him for a coffee and some snacks.” She agreed. But the owl of Minerva flies at dusk as the saying goes. Wisdom takes flight only after the day is nearly over.
“Till He appeared, and the soul felt its worth.” The song proclaims.
Christ did not die selectively. He died for every human being. There is no stronger declaration of worth than that. The thought unsettles me, and still does. But this much I know: a soul remembering its worth is no small thing.
People will devalue you. As the years pass, it becomes easier to be overlooked, bullied, slandered, undermined and so on. Some are avoided for their differences; others simply fade because the world is in a hurry. Modern life persuades us that we don’t have time for one another. But God never rushes past a dear soul.
And now, returning to the song. Without warning, the song changes tone. It stops describing and starts commanding:
“Fall on your knees!”
It lands suddenly. Personally. There is no easing into it.
This is not a gentle invitation. It does not ask if I am ready. It assumes something about me—that I am standing when I should be kneeling. Not physically, but inwardly. It is a call to honesty, to recognition of need.
The music understands this. That line stretches the singer to the edge of breath, asking for more than feels comfortable or safe. As I listen, my body responds before my thoughts do. My chest tightens. My eyes sting. Something in me recognises the truth being spoken.
This isn’t reverence in a polished sense; it is exposure. The song does not ask me to admire the stars or contemplate theology from a distance. It speaks as though it knows me—knows how much I am holding, how long I have been standing, how practiced I am at not collapsing.
Four words, and standing begins to feel like pretence.
What moves me most is this: kneeling comes after worth, not before. The song insists that I am seen first—named first, valued first. Only then does it call me to my knees. Not because I am small, but because I no longer need to prove that I am strong.
It is about honesty.
Kneeling is what happens when defences fail—A weary world does not need clever words. It needs permission to yield.
For God expressed His love for the world in this way:
He gave His only Son so that whoever believes in Him
will not face everlasting destruction,
but will have everlasting life.
John 3:16 (The Voice).
O Holy Night: The Story
“O Holy Night” began far from concert halls in 1847, in the small French town of Roquemaure. A local priest commissioned a poem to celebrate the repair of the church organ, and a townsman—poet and wine merchant Placide Cappeau—wrote it while traveling by carriage. Titled “Minuit, chrétiens,” the poem reflected on Christ’s birth as hope for a weary, longing world.
Cappeau later asked composer Adolphe Adam to set the words to music. Adam’s melody was tender and dramatic, perfectly matching the poem’s weight. The carol debuted on Christmas Eve at midnight Mass and moved listeners immediately.
Its path was not smooth. Church authorities later rejected the song because of its creators—Cappeau had distanced himself from the church, and Adam was Jewish. Still, people kept singing it, and affection carried it forward where approval did not.
Translated into English in 1855, the carol found new meaning in America. The line “Chains shall He break, for the slave is our brother” resonated deeply with abolitionists, proclaiming that Christ’s birth demanded justice and human dignity.
A final story—part history, part legend—comes from the Franco-Prussian War, when a soldier’s singing on Christmas Eve reportedly brought a brief ceasefire. For a moment, the song spoke louder than weapons.
The carol endures because it does not deny weariness or suffering. Instead, it insists that hope enters the world quietly, through humility and love—a truth that still finds its way into tired and longing hearts each year.
O Holy Night: Hope For a Tired World
O Holy Night: Hope For a Tired World
You would need to have lived in a cave not to have heard O Holy Night these past few weeks. It seeps into December everywhere—through radios, supermarket speakers, and half-open church doors—moving like a gentle air: uninvited, but welcome; familiar rather than demanding. Often, we don’t listen closely. It plays while we shop and drive, while our minds drift toward the ordinary and the heavy. I’ve heard it all my life, and much of it tells a story I already know.
“O holy night! The stars are brightly shining…
Long lay the world in sin and error pining.”
A tired world. A waiting world. None of that surprises me.
But then comes the line that always stops me, as though a loving hand has been placed quietly on my shoulder:
“Till He appeared, and the soul felt its worth.”
That is the moment when appreciation gives way to feeling—when the song no longer plays in the background and I stop half-listening. There are times in life when we feel the ache of being less than we should be. Some people carry that ache for years. Some carry it so quietly that even those closest to them never see it.
Yesterday, my wife and I visited Glasgow, including the carnival at Glasgow Green. It carried me back to childhood in Govan: hard winters, cold streets, dark tenement closes. Winter could feel unforgiving then. But every year the lorries would roll into town, and with them the circus, clowns, elephants and the carnival at the Kelvin Hall. They arrived like sunlight breaking into the gloom. For us Glasgow children, it mattered more than we could ever explain.
On the walk back, we met a man sitting alone and asked what he was doing that day. He told us he’d been to the Scottish Exhibition Centre for the carnival. “But it had no ghost train,” he added quickly. Then, with sudden urgency, he asked, “Did yours have a ghost train?”
As we spoke, I realised he had learning difficulties. The question returned again and again, unchanged. And in that repetition, I sensed something fragile and like us all, desiring connection.
I found myself wondering, unsteadily, about his sense of worth. About how often he might be overlooked. We told him we were Christians, though he never quite grasped what we meant. “I’ll need to go to the ghost train at Glasgow Green,” he said, returning to the one thing that mattered. He was kind, loving and he shook both our hands on departing. Afterwards, I said to my wife, “We should have taken him for a coffee and some snacks.” She agreed. But the owl of Minerva flies at dusk as the saying goes. Wisdom takes flight only after the day is nearly over.
“Till He appeared, and the soul felt its worth.” The song proclaims.
Christ did not die selectively. He died for every human being. There is no stronger declaration of worth than that. The thought unsettles me, and still does. But this much I know: a soul remembering its worth is no small thing.
People will devalue you. As the years pass, it becomes easier to be overlooked, bullied, slandered, undermined and so on. Some are avoided for their differences; others simply fade because the world is in a hurry. Modern life persuades us that we don’t have time for one another. But God never rushes past a dear soul.
And now, returning to the song. Without warning, the song changes tone. It stops describing and starts commanding:
“Fall on your knees!”
It lands suddenly. Personally. There is no easing into it.
This is not a gentle invitation. It does not ask if I am ready. It assumes something about me—that I am standing when I should be kneeling. Not physically, but inwardly. It is a call to honesty, to recognition of need.
The music understands this. That line stretches the singer to the edge of breath, asking for more than feels comfortable or safe. As I listen, my body responds before my thoughts do. My chest tightens. My eyes sting. Something in me recognises the truth being spoken.
This isn’t reverence in a polished sense; it is exposure. The song does not ask me to admire the stars or contemplate theology from a distance. It speaks as though it knows me—knows how much I am holding, how long I have been standing, how practiced I am at not collapsing.
Four words, and standing begins to feel like pretence.
What moves me most is this: kneeling comes after worth, not before. The song insists that I am seen first—named first, valued first. Only then does it call me to my knees. Not because I am small, but because I no longer need to prove that I am strong.
It is about honesty.
Kneeling is what happens when defences fail—A weary world does not need clever words.
It needs permission to yield.
For God expressed His love for the world in this way:
He gave His only Son so that whoever believes in Him
will not face everlasting destruction,
but will have everlasting life.
John 3:16 (The Voice).
O Holy Night: The Story
“O Holy Night” began far from concert halls in 1847, in the small French town of Roquemaure. A local priest commissioned a poem to celebrate the repair of the church organ, and a townsman—poet and wine merchant Placide Cappeau—wrote it while traveling by carriage. Titled “Minuit, chrétiens,” the poem reflected on Christ’s birth as hope for a weary, longing world.
Cappeau later asked composer Adolphe Adam to set the words to music. Adam’s melody was tender and dramatic, perfectly matching the poem’s weight. The carol debuted on Christmas Eve at midnight Mass and moved listeners immediately.
Its path was not smooth. Church authorities later rejected the song because of its creators—Cappeau had distanced himself from the church, and Adam was Jewish. Still, people kept singing it, and affection carried it forward where approval did not.
Translated into English in 1855, the carol found new meaning in America. The line “Chains shall He break, for the slave is our brother” resonated deeply with abolitionists, proclaiming that Christ’s birth demanded justice and human dignity.
A final story—part history, part legend—comes from the Franco-Prussian War, when a soldier’s singing on Christmas Eve reportedly brought a brief ceasefire. For a moment, the song spoke louder than weapons.
The carol endures because it does not deny weariness or suffering. Instead, it insists that hope enters the world quietly, through humility and love—a truth that still finds its way into tired and longing hearts each year.
Image by Copilot