I propped a bluetooth speaker on the porch ledge last week to play Christmas music while putting up outdoor holiday lights. A version of “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” by the band, Casting Crowns, drew me into the season’s sentiments.
(CHORUS:)
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
The song then ruminates on the dark mood of the world in 1863 when Henry Wadsworth Longfellow penned the poem that later became the song.*
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
The mood of 2020 seems similarly somber. Between COVID-weariness, including restrictions that have all but obliterated family/friends celebrations, and having just emerged from a bitterly contentious presidential election, I wonder if anyone is feeling the peace the bells want to celebrate? Pile on all the normal abnormal challenges life brings and maybe we should put the bells away until our situation improves.
The song turns again to draw attention to a hope that Christmas unveils. Despite all the despair and hopelessness, the bells keep ringing, persisting, insisting that an all but forgotten promise from long ago is in fact emerging from behind the scenes..
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
Less than 60 years after the first Christmas, the apostle Paul reflected in his letter to the Galatians,
“But when the right time came, God sent his Son, born of a woman, subject to the law.
(Galatians 4:4, NLT)”
Then, as now, just in time, at just the right time and repeatedly down through history, Christmas descends to cast an extraordinarily luminous glow onto the scene of the otherwise bleak condition of humankind.
2020 seems another right time for Christmas to arrive on our scene to show us that the broken record of humanity can be mended and redeemed. The lights that I string on and around my house and yard are one of my own little ways to rejoin and call attention to the hope the bells herald - of Jesus arriving on our scene to anchor a promise made long ago.
Notes:
1) Two of my favorite versions of “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day:”
By Casting Crowns, 2008, “Peace on Earth” album
By Mercy Me, 2006, “Christmas Sessions” album
2) * Song origins: "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day" is a Christmas carol based on the 1863 poem "Christmas Bells" by American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.[1] The song tells of the narrator's despair, upon hearing Christmas bells during the American Civil War, that "hate is strong and mocks the song of peace on earth, good will to men". The carol concludes with the bells carrying renewed hope for peace among men. See Wikipedia