I heard the Bells on Christmas Day

Dec. 25, 2022

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was a poet and educator. He lived in the 1800s. He was the most popular poet of his time. He wrote the Midnight Ride of Paul Revere. He also wrote the poem we just sang, “I heard the bells on Christmas Day.”

It’s a song about hearing the Christmas bells during the Civil War. It starts out a happy song. Then it gets very sad. There’s two verses we don’t usually sing:

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 hearthstones of a continent,
And made forlorn
The households born
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Because of war, he writes:

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!”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow is not just grumpy, not just being dramatic.

He had a lot of tragedy. 2 years before he wrote this, his second wife died in a tragic fire. Her dress caught on fire. Henry tried to put it out, but didn’t, and she died the next day. He was severely burned on his face and couldn’t go to her funeral.

Then just days before he wrote I heard the bells, his oldest son, who had joined the Union Army (Henry told him not to), this son was seriously wounded in war.

So, Henry has lost his wife, he has five children dependent on him, and one seriously wounded. Henry is expressing that he is NOT fine.

It is ok not to be ok.  Life isn’t easy. Today, this is one of the darkest days of the year, and VERY cold. Life is not perfect. Beyond that, things happen to us, and it feels like life is spinning out of control.

We want God to fix the world and make it perfect. It is not new to think that there is something wrong with this world.

God is alarmed by sin. He has tried many things: giving us the 10 commandments, sending the prophets, and finally he decided, he had to send his son, Jesus.

Jesus came, not to clean the world up, not to end all the wrong. Jesus came to join the world, to join us. He came as a baby. Mary and Joseph had a baby in less than ideal circumstances: all alone, away from family, laying him in a manger. Mary and Jesus were aware the world is not as it should be. Jesus was born in the middle of a mess.

God didn’t choose perfection, to send Jesus to perfect circumstances. Instead, he chose reality.

So, no matter what our world looks like, God is with us! God is with us. God is not God way up there is heaven. Jesus went through persecution, suffering and execution. He came to save us from our sins.

Henry, in his last verse, finds faith:

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 world can be tragic, not how we think it should be. Still, in the end, Henry has faith the right will prevail.

He didn’t know how it would end, but in the end, the civil war ended. The country stayed together. Slavery ended. Henry had faith God is working!

Our hope can’t be in a perfect world. Our hope is in God’s grace and strength when we despair. And in God with us always.

So, we don’t wish for a perfect Christmas. Mary & Joseph probably wished things were better at first. But as the shepherds came to worship, Mary & Joseph came to see not perfect was alright.

Our prayer is for God’s gift of faith, that we like Henry will have faith in God to triumph; faith in peace on earth. Amen.