I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day

Most people naturally think about Silent Night on Christmas Eve, but “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” may be an even better fit.

Here are the lyrics:

I heard the bells on Christmas Day

Their old, familiar carols play,

and wild and sweet

The words repeat

Of peace on earth, goodwill to men!

And thought how, as the day had come,

The belfries of all Christendom

Had rolled along

The unbroken song

Of peace on earth, goodwill 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, goodwill 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, goodwill to men.”

THE SONG’S STORY

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow—one of American history’s most respected poets—wrote this poem about the Civil War. His wife of 18 years died 1861. His son joined the Union army without his father’s blessing and was severely wounded. After the difficulties of the previous few years, Longfellow wrote the poem on Christmas of 1863. The poem was then turned into a song in 1872 by John Baptiste Calkin, who took out some of the more specific stanzas having to do with the war, such as:

Then from each black, accursed mouth

The cannon thundered in the South,

And with the sound

The carols drowned

Of peace on earth, goodwill to men!

In the 1962 novel Something Wicked This Way Comes, Ray Bradbury described this carol as “immensely moving, overwhelming, no matter what day or what month it was sung.”

THE BIBLICAL CONNECTION

The Christmas season is a well-known time for people to battle depression . For many people the oft-described great joy of Christmas seems foreign from their actual experience. Many are experiencing loneliness over being away from family and might be grieving their life situation or the broader circumstances of their community.

Because of the incarnation our Lord God isn’t absent from the world but he’s intimately involved in it. God entered human existence as an infant on the first Christmas night to begin his great work to heal the world’s brokenness:

“All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God” (2 Corinthians 5:18–20).

“For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister (Colossians 1:19-23).

Longfellow was right, God is not dead or sleeping. The right will prevail and the wrong shall fail, and we have a child born in Bethlehem to thank for that.

Another Christmas carol that touches on the same theme is “Joy to the World.” Consider this stanza:

No more let sin and sorrow grow

Nor thorns infest the ground:

He comes to make his blessings flow

Far as the curse is found,

Far as the curse is found,

Far as, far as the curse is found.

“Joy to the World” also reminds us that, lying within the manger, is hope for the future. Because of Christmas, we know that God is at work in the world reconciling everything to Himself.