^“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.”

  Luke 2:14 KJV

One of the most endearing aspects of Christmas hymns is how they do not shy away from the world as it is.  So very many passages of the Bible tell of God coming to redeem, save, and visit His world – yet the context is always struggle.  Revelation 21 talks of the day when (finally and fully) “the dwelling place of God will be with men … and there will be no more death, mourning, crying or pain…”    The prophet Isaiah famously foretells of a day when “they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks”. This describes the transformation of items used to harm into items used to plant and harvest, from items that take away to items that make provision for life, in other words.   Christmas hymns contain stanzas like:

• “no more let sin or sorrow grow, nor thorns infest the ground”, and
• "you beneath life’s crushing load, whose forms are bending low, who toil along the climbing way with painful steps and slow”, or
• “mild he lays his glory by, born that we no more may die".

Yet no carol that I am aware of strikes the tone of hope in the midst of troubled reality any better than the song based on the poem by the great American writer Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. His poem was titled “Christmas Bells” and the song eventually was named “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.”  It’s one of my favorites actually – one of the few I can play half decently on my clarinet by the way!    

Here is a brief history of the song, with all credit this time to my friend Wikipedia -

“The song tells of the narrator hearing Christmas bells during the American Civil War, but despairing that "hate is strong and mocks the song of peace on earth, good will to men". After much anguish and despondency, the carol concludes with the bells ringing out with resolution that "God is not dead, nor doth He sleep" and that there will ultimately be "...peace on earth, good will to men".

In 1861, two years before writing this poem, Longfellow's personal peace was shaken when his second wife of 18 years, to whom he was very devoted, was fatally burned in an accidental fire. Then in 1863, during the American Civil War, Longfellow's oldest son, Charles Appleton Longfellow, joined the Union Army without his father's blessing. Longfellow was informed by a letter dated March 14, 1863, after Charles had left. "I have tried hard to resist the temptation of going without your leave but I cannot any longer", he wrote. "I feel it to be my first duty to do what I can for my country, and I would willingly lay down my life for it if it would be of any good." Charles was soon appointed as a lieutenant but, in November, he was severely wounded in the Battle of Mine Run. Charles eventually recovered, but his time as a soldier was finished.

Longfellow wrote the poem on Christmas Day in 1863 "Christmas Bells" was first published in February 1865.   References to the Civil War are prevalent in some of the verses that are not commonly sung.” 

The song was first set to music in 1872. Longfellow surely didn’t set out to write a Christmas carol, but his weaving of despair and hope is surely consonant with the Christmas message of the angels. His refrain to each stanza speaks it, when he uses the (King James Version) of Luke 2 - ”of peace on earth, good will to men.”   Christmas is indeed a happy time, but it is happy because of the contrasts of hope in Christ versus the struggles of this life.  

Here are a few verses of Longfellow’s poem for you to meditate upon …   

I heard the bells on Christmas Day

Their old, familiar carols play,

and mild and sweet

The words repeat

Of peace on earth, good will to men!

And 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!



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!

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."

Amen!!

Pastor Ken Nelson