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My girls have a little Christmas book that came with a tree decoration we put up in their room. At the back of the book are a few carols, one of which I have not sung very often, and had all but forgotten about: “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day”
I knew from literature courses in university that this was an older poem – but I was reading the lyrics and thinking to myself how appropriate they sounded. Listen for a second just to three verses:
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.
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.”
Pretty interesting is it not, that we live in an era when war and disaster loom large all around us, when many people want to say that God is dead and that there is no hope. And yet...
Do you know where that song comes from? It is a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. It was written shortly after his wife burned to death in an accidental fire; shortly after his son returned from war a cripple; all near the end of the America Civil War, Christmas 1864.
But that is nothing. A little over 4000 years ago our prophet, Malachi, was bemoaning the fact that God seemed very absent in light of Babylonian Military invasion, and yet we should have hope.
Some 2000 years later Mary and Elizabeth are wondering about the wisdom of bringing forth sons in Roman occupied Palestine.
I don’t want to seem all doom and gloom a few days before we all celebrate – but hey, this is over 5000 years of anecdotal evidence that life pretty much is not what we would expect it to be.
Having a child is a pretty interesting case study in just how easy it is to forget the good things. I don’t mean, having a child and watching them grow up, I mean physically having a child. Now clearly I am speaking from observation here – but I think pregnancy goes pretty much like this:
We should have kids – wouldn’t that be nice?
I’m Pregnant! (tears of joy, relief, buying baby booties)
Why did you do this to me?
Get this thing out of me!
We tend to forget that the characters in the Bible are real life flesh and blood people. So I think Mary has gone long enough that by the time she goes to see Elizabeth a lot of the original joy and happiness has been replaced by the pain, sore back, morning sickness, lack of sleep, and the fact that Joseph is off with all his carpentry things and not picking up the slack.
What started out as hope and enthusiasm has turned to worry and fear.
This is not just a pregnancy thing, this is a human thing. You start school with such bright eyed optimism, you become a doctor because you are going to heal people, or a lawyer to reform the world, and there comes a point where the pain, the cynicism, the utter reality of life dulls that optimism and you wonder why you should bother.
Another war, another story – remember the Christmas Eve story from the trenches of World War One, when some anonymous German soldier began to sing Stille Nacht...
It started at the battle of Flanders where the two sides were dug into trenches and fighting bitterly. The Germans actually went so far as to put up Christmas trees with candles. As the story has been told, it was the German side that started the truce. Many of them spoke English, while few of the allied soldiers spoke German.
They put up signs that said “you no fight – we no fight” and “Merry Christmas”... eventually someone was brave enough to stand up and test things – and no one fired. Then they made their way into no man’s land and each side buried their dead. After that the truce lasted a few days; gifts were exchanged and the soldiers played soccer together. Unfortunately, it didn’t last. Still....
One song, one night, was enough to reach into the gloom of World War One and restore some of that hope that seemed lost.
It takes something to reach into the darkness that pervades our souls. We cannot do it alone. Even mary had grown weary and worried, frightened for what might become of her baby. It took Elizabeth, and the joyous meeting of two unborn children who seemed somehow to recognize each other to break the spell, and remind them what a miracle childbirth and new life is.
It took Church Bells on Christmas Eve to make Longfellow remember that his pain and struggle did not have the last word.
The trick is to allow these moments of revelation to seep into our soul and revive our hope and spirit. Remember, no matter what is happening in your life, there is hope. That is the miracle of the magnificat, that is what Mary finds the courage to sing about, that is the point of a Christmas Carol penned in the midst of war:
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.”
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