Meant to keep ladies cooler, crinolines over hoop skirts were a terrible fire hazard around open flame. The poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, was burned too severely trying to extinguish the blaze that killed his wife to attend her funeral. Two years later with one of his six children dead already and the oldest wounded terribly in the Civil War, he rode a train to DC and on Christmas 1863 wrote of the disconnect he found between life and the peace he read about from the pages of his Bible.
Perhaps we, who also struggle with life and the world we live in, can reconcile God’s Word with what we see through what became the song, “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.”
I. Isaiah 9:6-7. Longfellow found a disconnect between his grief and horrors of this life when he heard the church bells ringing and thought of all they symbolized. If Jesus was the Prince of Peace to bring peace on earth, where was that peace? Job too went through much anguish, but he trusted God through it all (Job 1:20-22; Job 2:9-10). The first stanza on his mind’s journey went like this:
I heard the bells on Christmas day, Their old familiar carols play, And mild and sweet their songs repeat Of peace on Earth, good will to men.
And the bells are ringing (peace on earth), Like a choir they’re singing (peace on earth), In my heart I hear them (peace on earth), Peace on Earth, good will to men.
II. Matthew 10:34-39. As long as the fellow’s focus was here on earth, he found only destruction and death. The Prince of Peace, as it turns out, came not to bring peace but a sword. How can that be? His eyes needed to shift higher. It’s peace between God and man that Jesus brought by His incarnation as He was the baby born to die (Matthew 1:21). We suffer here but have peace and hope there (Romans 5:1-5). We see him wresting with this in the second verse:
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.
But the bells are ringing (peace on earth), Like a choir singing (peace on earth); Does anybody hear them? (peace on earth), Peace on Earth, good will to men.
III. 1 Corinthians 15:13-19. As this dawns on Longfellow, there’s a transition in the hymn:
Then rang the bells more loud and deep, God is not dead, nor does He sleep (peace on earth, peace on earth); the wrong shall fail, the right prevail, With peace on Earth, good will to men.
He decides that this world is not his home and puts his trust in the gospel that brought the outcome of peace between God and man as evidenced by the third stanza:
Then 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.
And the bells, they’re ringing (peace on earth), Like a choir they’re singing (peace on earth), And with our hearts, we’ll hear them (peace on earth); Peace on Earth, good will to men.
His struggle is the same as ours and the same question posed to us as the final chorus asks:
Do you hear the bells, they’re ringing? (peace on earth), The light, the angels singing (peace on earth); Open up your heart and hear them (peace on earth); Peace on Earth, good will to men.
Peace on Earth, Peace on Earth, Peace on Earth, good will to men.
The same peace that Longfellow found that the bells proclaimed can be yours. Do you have it?