Everything was set. Together, the team had planned exactly what they were going to do and were excited about it. Surely, this would be their best team effort ever. They arrived to the village where they would be serving on December 23rd. But, there was a problem, a big problem. The St. Nicholas’ church organ wasn’t working and would not be repaired before Christmas. What would they do now? They needed the organ. Their entire plan rested on the music of that organ. Had someone told them about the broken organ as the team planned for this trip, they could have prepared. They could have brought other instruments or changed the plans somehow. Maybe they would have gone somewhere else entirely to a different church that would have the organ they needed. But, they were here now with no time to change the plan. Christmas was only two days away. They had to press on. They’d still offer the programs they had planned as close to the original plans as possible; but it would all take place in someone’s home instead. It wasn’t what they wanted, but it would have to work. Those who came enjoyed it; those who pulled it off shrugged their shoulders and struggled. It wasn’t all they had wanted to be. They trusted that God would redeem what seemed mediocre.

Josef Mohr was struggling too. He was one of the pastors at the organ-less church. He had so wanted to give those he shepherded more this Christmas. But, he just felt the church didn’t have enough; he wasn’t enough. Inviting this foreign team to come was his last effort to give his church something more. What they arrived and saw there was no organ, he was sure that this would be another failure. But, they rallied. They somehow pulled together and changed the plan and gave his church something remarkable after all. He didn’t see it as mediocre at all.

Josef remembered something he himself had planned years earlier. It was just a simple poem he had written in a moment of inspiration. He had never done anything more with it. But, if that team can do something beautiful in the face of a broken organ, maybe he could too. He dug out that old poem and took it to Franz Xaver Gruber who had been the church organist when they had had an organ that worked. He told him about the foreign team and his desire to be like them and redeem setbacks for good.

A few hours later, Josef and Franz welcomed people into the organ-less church where Franz stood in front of the pews facing the people instead of sitting with his back to them at an organ. He played a tune on his guitar that he had just created and sang the words Josef had written.

Silent night, holy night!
All is calm, all is bright.
Round yon Virgin, Mother and Child.
Holy infant so tender and mild,
Sleep in heavenly peace,
Sleep in heavenly peace.

Silent night, holy night!
Shepherds quake at the sight.
Glories stream from heaven afar
Heavenly hosts sing Alleluia,
Christ the Savior is born!
Christ the Savior is born.

Silent night, holy night!
Son of God love’s pure light.
Radiant beams from Thy holy face
With dawn of redeeming grace,
Jesus Lord, at Thy birth
Jesus Lord, at Thy birth.

200 years after Franz sang those lyrics for the first time for his tiny little church in a tiny little village in Austria, we’re still singing them here in our own living room with my son Drew who is just learning to strum and in classrooms in China as teachers explain to students how Americans celebrate our most important holiday of the year.

A broken organ. A leader who felt unable. A man who couldn’t do what he was hired to do. A team of people who felt called to a little place no one else really wanted to go, doubted that calling when they discovered what looked like a major setback, but rallied to be obedient within the context they were given. A series of events that looked like challenges that could ruin something good that instead were opportunities that led to one of the most beautiful creative expressions celebrating what God did for His people through Christmas.