Since late October our radios and playlists have been flooded with Christmas and holiday songs, both secular and sacred. We all have our favorites, even as we grow tired of others being on continual repeat. One of my favorite Christmas songs is a classic that doesn’t get played much anymore. The is song “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.” I’m particularly partial to the version released by Casting Crowns. The song was originally written as a poem by American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. He originally published it under the title “Christmas Bells” in 1863. It was later set to music and we now know it by the poem’s first line. Yet the poem’s haunting lyrics pack a theological punch.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow is an American poet who hardly needs introduction. He is best known for his work such as “Paul Revere‘s Ride.” “The Song of Hiawatha” and “Evangeline”. After the tragic death of his second wife, who died of complications of burns suffered in a fire, Longfellow sat down his pen for a few years. However, in 1863 his eldest son enlisted in the American Union army and set off to serve in the War Between the States. To find consolation, he picked up his pen once again, and wrote a poem, reflecting on the promise of the Incarnation.
The poem is short, comprising seven stanzas of five lines each. Each stanza is packed with theological and philosophical depth. Longfellow begins with familiarity. In the midst of grief and despair, he is comforted by the “old familiar carols” that were played by the belfries of local churches in his hometown of Portland, Maine. The tidings brought by these sweet repeated words are “peace on earth, goodwill to men.” This line becomes Longfellow’s reflection throughout the entire poem. Each stanza ends with these words from the angels to the Shepherds as recorded in Luke’s Gospel (2:14 KJV).
Yet as quickly as the familiar comfort of the carols come, for Longfellow, they are drowned out by the grief of the death of his wife and the potential loss of his son in battle. All he can hear are the “cannons thundering in the south” and the earthquake that shook a continent. It can be hard for us to understand just how much the American Civil War threatened to rip apart the fabric of a young nation. Both sides of the conflict experienced great loss and tragedy. There was not a family in the North or South that was not affected by the conflict. The grief and loss, as experienced by Longfellow, is almost unbearable.
The next to last stanza shows the depth of despair. Is it Longfellow Fields and it feels all too familiar to us today as well:
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!”
That sentiment reverberates down through the centuries. How do we reconcile the teachings of the Bible, that through the incarnation of Jesus Immanuel God with us, the reality that there is peace on earth and goodwill toward men? This is where we get to the depth of the poem. We must remember that we live in an “already not yet reality.” The gospels remind us that Jesus came to establish a kingdom. It is truly here, but it is also not yet. That reality is what we celebrate each advent and Christmas season. The peace promised to the shepherds at Jesus‘s first coming is as good as done. His death and resurrection have set to right all that is wrong with the world. All that our sin has broken will be restored. But that day has not fully come yet. We wait for this Hope because we trust that the Lord keeps his promises. The incarnation shows us this. His timing is not ours, but it is perfect. All that grieves us and that we hope to fix in this world will be fixed in God’s good time.
For this reason, Longfellow ends his poem with great hope:
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.”
That, my friends, is the gospel that we are called to shout from the mountaintops! Longfellow himself feels it, as the bells of Christmas begin to drown out the temporary noise of despair. God is busy setting the world to right. For that we must eagerly end with great Hope, await. This reality truly gives us the peace that we belong for as we mark the coming of Christ.
May you and your family have a Merry Christmas!
Photo Credit: Unsplash.com
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