I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day

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.

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."

Till, ringing singing, on its way,
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime, a chant sublime,
Of peace on earth, good will to men!

I was talking with my sweet friend Kate tonight about this advent blog project, and she told me this is her favorite Christmas song. While it's certainly one I've heard before, I hadn't really heard the words or absorbed them (which is so fitting, since that is exactly what this song is about). So I hurried home and looked up the lyrics to this beautiful Christmas poem, and promptly fell in love.

We sing these Christmas carols (even though the bells are often replaced by electric guitars in our modern tomes) and hearts fill with joy. I look around at faces in the church as the old, familiar tunes are played, and there is an almost Pavlovian response--the song begins and warmth and joy and peace spread across the faces of many. And it's not just in church, we wander department stores and see person after person mouthing the words or humming along to O Holy Night. But do they really hear the words? Are they aware of what they are singing?

And for some, just as Longfellow pens in this poem, the message of peace on earth, good will to man feels like a sham. They sing the words with a bitter taste in their mouths. How could it be that we sing of peace when war in raging all around us? How can we sing of love's pure light when hate and enmity it so strong between races and parties in our country? We call fraud as these songs carol the promises of a God who touts these virtuous qualities in a world so completely torn apart.

We are a despairing people. We hang our heads in fear and sadness of the cruelties of this world. We bemoan the heartaches and burdens of our every day lives. There isn't a day that passes when we don't know sorrow or disappointment, when we don't look about and wish things were different somehow. So how dare these carols ring out peace and good will! They mock our very existence, the tortured world we know.

But then we see Longfellow listen to the music with new ears. He isn't just humming along with the tune or mumbling the words while he pens another Christmas card, now He is listening, truly listening to the music. The truths are less superficial; they no longer mock, but instead reverberate to the deepest longings of the soul. He hears the carols cry out to him, God is not dead, nor does He sleep. God hasn't gone silent on this watch. He hasn't ignored our groanings or lost sight of our pain. He isn't oblivious to the war raging or the hate spat from people to people.

Instead the bells remind him that here is the God who lives, who breathes, who cries, who sees. God does sleep, but not as an absent God, but as an active God made flesh. He sleeps because He has come to us in vulnerability. He sleeps because He has become like us. His sleep reveals a God fully awake to our pain and struggle.

And in His wakeful action the wrong shall fail, the right prevail. Evil will not ultimately triumph, good will win, just as our longing hearts so desire. Just as every story ever written has at its core the longing for good to win out, for evil to be defeated, so in the greatest story every told, good will prevail. All that's wrong shall be made right; all that's torn shall be mended; all that's defiled shall be made pure. This is the happy ending we've been looking for, and it is not a superficial fairy tale resolution. Jesus brings the greatest happily ever after, for it is happily forever after. His right will prevail, for all eternity. There will be peace on earth, good will to men, always and forever.

So Longfellow's whole mood shifts in the last stanza. Where once he was melancholy, He is now jubilant. Where once he was despairing, now he has hope. The songs no longer bear the dirge of a life that will never be, instead they carry the hope of the life that is to come. They don't just carry the hope, they are ringing, singing, a voice, a chime, a chant sublime. The bells exude the hope of the Christmas story. The night has turned to day, the wailing of mourning has turned to joyous celebration. Where the bells were once tiresome, now they bring restoration.

This is what the gospel does. It takes a broken person, wearied by the evils of this world--a person embittered by the circumstances that surround her, a person disillusioned with the promises of a God who seems to be sleeping on that job--and the gospel, the good news of a God Child born to save us all, changes everything. The gospel turns night to day, turns mourning to praise, turns despair to unfailing hope. The gospel changes the tune we sing; the gospel changes our story line. We see how God has always been for us; has been for us so much that He took on flesh, has been for us so much that He experienced the war, the hatred, the despair, has been for us so much that He died to end that curse upon us. Our story is now one of a person loved so immensely that God came to bring peace, to bring joy, to bring good will back again.

When we hear the bells of Christmas, the loud, deep bells of the Christmas story singing over our hearts, we cannot help but be transformed. Our dirge is now a dance, our hymn now a rock song. The loud, deep bells of the Christmas story revolve our world from night to day. We now know the God who brought peace on earth, goodwill to men, and He is better than we could have ever imagined.