Christmas Bells

​​I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day
Their old familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet the words repeat
Of peace on earth, good will to men.
 
I thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along the unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.
 
Christmas joy. That’s what this time of year is about, isn’t it?

 How many Christmas specials end with pealing bells? And falling snow. We must have falling snow to produce the required white Christmas and give us joy. A recent choral special we watched at our house included “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.” (No snow here, but plenty of fake fog to catch the spectacular lighting. But the choir stopped after these two verses and went straight into “Jingle Bells.” Evidently that is as deep as the pealing of bells goes on American TV.
 
And yet, peace on earth is not what heads the evening news. It doesn’t describe our recent election or many of our relationships—even within our families where we should find most peace and good will.
 
The American poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, who wrote the lyrics in 1863 must have felt the same way I do. The American Civil War was tearing the nation apart. Longfellow’s son, Charles had been severely wounded in the Battle of New Hope Church in Virginia. He wrote some verses that we don’t usually sing at Christmas.
 
Then from each black, accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound the carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
 
It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearth-stones of a continent,
And made forlorn the households born
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
 
A father’s heart is broken and angry. How many hearts are broken and angry this Christmas? Children trapped in Allepo. Shoppers run down by a terrorist’s truck. Refugees waiting hopelessly in camps. Young men coming of age in prison. Grieving families of unarmed black men, and of police shot in retaliation for crimes they didn’t commit. Immigrants shut out of the American dream.
 
Longfellow’s poem goes on.
 
And in despair I bowed my head:
"There is no peace on earth," I said,
"For hate is strong and mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good will to men."
 
Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
"God is not dead, nor doth he sleep;
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail,
With peace on earth, good will to men."
 
“The wrong shall fail, the right prevail,” because the baby whose birth we celebrate was not an ordinary baby. “God is not dead nor doth he sleep;” he has come to earth to reconcile sinners to himself and to each other. God’s plan includes a painful and humiliating death on a cross and a glorious resurrection in power and majesty. It involves calling a people to himself—a church that can see the world through his eyes, feel the pain with his heart, and act rightly.
 
This year may you know his peace, bought at such a terrible price, and be a part of the plan he was working out at Bethlehem so long ago.