5 Minutes with Jesus is a daily devotional series for people in the midst of real life, whether facing anxiety, grief, questions of purpose, or simply needing encouragement and connection. Hosted by Sheila Walsh, each five-minute episode offers Biblical truth, honest reflections on faith and emotions, and closes with a moment of prayer.
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| Sheila Walsh: The Sound of Christmas | 5 Minutes with Jesus | December 16, 2025
- Music has a way of bypassing arguments and division.
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- It goes right to the soul
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- In the midst of the busyness of the season.
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- Find a quiet place
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- To let
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- The music of christmas minister to the deepest parts of you.
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- Let the truth of that joy filled night
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- Cause a cease fire in your own soul.
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- And worship in the stillness.
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- One of the things i love
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- Most about the advent season is the music.
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- I remember the choral sheets that were handed out
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- Once a year on christmas eve, and our little church.
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- My nana and i would share a sheet as we sang.
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- Especially love the christmas hymns
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- From my childhood in scotland.
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- Songs such as little children, wake and listen
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- Or once in royal david's city,
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- Or little town of bethlehem in the bleak midwinter.
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- And so, so many more.
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- If you want to enjoy those lovely hymns,
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- I highly recommend listening
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- To the choir of king's college from cambridge, england.
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- Their music brings me to tears each time i listen to the voices
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- Of the boy soprano was blending with the men of the choir.
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- Takes me to a quiet place of worship
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- Before our church is christmas eve service.
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- I love to join millions of people around the world,
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- Tuning in to a festival of nine lessons and carols
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- From king's college, which the british broadcasting
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- Corporation has aired every christmas eve since 1928.
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- I enjoy songs like frosty the snowman
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- As much as the next person,
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- But as we get closer to the birth of jesus,
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- I focus on the hymns that tell the joy filled gospel story.
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- Some of the most enduring were written by men and women
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- Who had no idea her father's songs would go,
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- Or how many people they would reach.
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- And that is certainly true of joseph moore, a young man
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- Trying to bring some comfort to the people of his village.
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- Moore was a young austrian priest who penned
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- The lyrics to the beloved christmas hymn silent night.
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- He wrote the song
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- In his native german just after the napoleonic wars had ended.
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- Following 12 years of war, the congregation
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- And his small town there were reeling.
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- People were poor.
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- They were traumatized.
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- So in the fall of 1816, moore sat down and wrote these lyrics
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- As a poem to try and bring some hope to his parishioners.
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- A couple years later,
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- Or gave the lyrics to a friend, a school teacher and organist
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- And asked him could he set the words to music
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- While the two men sang silent night
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- For the first time in moore's church on christmas eve in 1818.
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- Congregation loved it.
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- And that might have been as far as it would have traveled.
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- Some songs come and go,
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- But others resonate so deeply that they survive
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- Through the years and get translated
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- Into different languages,
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- Sometimes marked significant moments in our history,
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- And none more so
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- Than the miracle that happened between enemy soldiers
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- On christmas eve in 1914.
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- The first world war between britain and germany had
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- Been raging since june 1914,
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- And the casualties astronomical.
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- Pope benedict
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- Suggested a temporary halt to the fighting to celebrate
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- The birth of christ,
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- But neither side was willing to write up
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- An official cease fire agreement.
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- Something happened in the trenches
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- That christmas eve, and for that one night, everything changed.
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- The story goes that walter kershaw, a german officer
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- Who'd been a tenor with the berlin opera, began to sing.
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- Stanley winters remembered it this way.
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- He came forward and sang silent night, a german and then
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- An english in the clear, cold night of christmas eve.
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- His voice carried very far.
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- The shooting had stopped.
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- And in that silence he sang.
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- And the british soldiers knew the song and sang back.
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- It was a completely impromptu moment.
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- Can you imagine?
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- The men on both sides were worn out, cold,
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- Missing their families.
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- They were young boys wondering when the war would ever end.
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- There'd been talk of a temporary cease fire,
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- But nothing official.
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- They sat in the trenches waiting for something to happen.
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- Perhaps remembering other christmas eves home
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- Warmed by a fire.
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- Then a clear, beautiful voice rang out,
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- And everyone silent.
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- The german soldiers recognized the words,
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- And the british soldiers, who at first recognized
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- The tune, then heard the christmas hymn
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- Being sung in their own language.
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- Walter kershaw put down his weapon
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- That night, but he was no longer a soldier.
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- He was using his god given gift to bring peace
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- To the least likely place on earth,
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- A battlefield.
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- As his voice soared.
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- It was as if he
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- Was back on stage in berlin with a captive audience.
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- But then the men on both sides of that terrible war
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- Began singing along together
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- For a few brief hours.
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- The men came out of their trenches and met in the middle,
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- Where they saw each other not as enemies, but as sons
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- And husbands and fathers.
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- Many of the soldiers on both sides
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- Wrote home to their families
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- And tried to convey the beauty of that night.
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- One soldier reportedly wrote to his mother,
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- You won't believe this.
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- It was like a waking dream.
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- Music has a way of bypassing arguments and division.
- 00:05:49.238 --> 00:05:52.575
- It goes right to the soul
- 00:05:52.575 --> 00:05:54.844
- In the midst of the busyness of the season.
- 00:05:54.844 --> 00:05:57.313
- Find a quiet place
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- To let
- 00:05:58.714 --> 00:05:59.949
- The music of christmas minister to the deepest parts of you.
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- Let the truth of that joy filled night
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- Cause a cease fire in your own soul.
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- And worship in the stillness.
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- Let's pray.
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- Father, i just want to thank
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- You for that miracle that happened that night.
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- I thank you
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- That for those brief hours, those those boys in
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- The trenches were reminded of the greatest truth.
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- That you didn't just come for one side.
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- You didn't come for one people.
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- That you came to proclaim peace for all on earth.
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- And i thank you, lord, that that is our gift this christmas.
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- You have promised us your peace, and we accept your peace
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- In the powerful name of jesus.
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- Amen.
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