All Age Talk

I’ve been intrigued the past few weeks as I’ve been learning the different Christmas carols that are popular here in the UK compared to those in the States.

Some are the same. Some have the same word and a different tune.

Some are completely new and different for me.

And I’m sure the same is true in reverse…there are many carols I grew up with and are familiar staples at Christmastime that would be completely unknown to most of you.

Like the kind found in a carol that’s familiar in the States…do you know this one?

(SING)

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’M GLAD if they know it)

That captures it all, doesn’t it? Bells…familiar carols…peace on earth…goodwill to everyone…

The picture-perfect Christmas.

Or is it?

(SING)

Many people who are familiar with that hymn don’t know that it started off as a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and though it starts off all calm and bright…it’s a poem that, as you would have noticed, also doesn’t ignore the troubles of the real world.

In fact, there are two verses of the poem that were never adapted into the hymn version. When you hear they you can guess why—they’re very bleak:

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!

It was as if an earthquake rent

The hearth-stones of a continent,

And made forlorn

The households born

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

See Longfellow actually wrote those words while America was still caught up in the height of the Civil War.

And not only was America in turmoil, so was Longfellow’s personal life.

His beloved wife had died in a tragic fire in 1860, and in 1863 their oldest son ran off against his father’s wishes to fight in the Union army, and returned home in December after being severely wounded in battle.

When Longfellow writes, “in despair I bowed my head,” he’s describing reality as he knows it…he’s suffering from significant depression.

In his journal entries the first two Christmases after his wife’s death, Henry writes, “How inexpressibly sad are the holidays,” then “A merry Christmas say the children, but that is no more for me.”

Now in the third year, with his son home recuperating, Longfellow doesn’t bother to write anything in his journal.

Then one Christmas morning, he sits down to put pen to paper, and writes a poem called “Christmas Bells,” which people around the world now sing as “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.”

In his poem, Wadsworth is describing the very cracks in the foundation of humanity that were exposed by the Civil War, and are exposed every time our world is torn by conflict and hatred.

But notice how he ends the poem:

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."

He acknowledges the pain and suffering all around hymn, but he also acknowledges something more important: that a day is coming when the wrong shall fail, the right prevail…and the peace on earth, good-will to men that was promised on that first Christmas will be real for everyone.

(SIMILAR TO PSALMS OF LAMENT)

Today, as we shared earlier…we’re talking about peace.

But we live in a world that, just as Longfellow experienced, is anything but peaceful these days.

So as we get ready to listen to God’s word, I wonder…how do you experience peace even when the world is pure chaos?

Can you think of a time that has been true for you?

What does it mean in our modern-day world to say that Christmas is a time of peace on earth, and good-will to everyone?

(TRANSITION TO SONG—SOMETIMES LACK OF PEACE IS INTERNAL)