Sometimes the euphoria of the Christmas
season does not match the emotions of our heart. Perhaps events invading our
personal lives make our emotional lives more like the steel gray skies of
December than the bright glittering ornaments hung on a Christmas tree. Many may
enter into this Christmas season with more emotional uncertainty than perhaps
they have had in many years.
Maybe personal difficulties have bruised one’s
emotional psyche. A disturbing medical exam, financial uncertainty, family
crisis, or the death of a friend or family member has altered a spirit of
celebration transforming it into a caldron of emotional perplexity as one tries
to process unfathomable news. Compounding these personal dilemmas are the
national and international events announcing terrorism, death, hatred, and all
sorts of unspeakable mayhem. The cascade of turmoil seems to sneer at the
refrain of “peace on earth and good will to men.” How can we even mouth those
words when we live in a world of pain, individually and on the international
stage?
We have the tendency to look at current
history as the defining moment of all history. While our present circumstances
are important, they are not empowered to process and interpret our past nor
define and determine our uncertain future. It may be true that we currently live in
extremely uncertain and difficult times; however, this state of despair is not
new to the planet earth. This came into sharp focus recently as I read and
reflected on the words to the familiar Christmas carol “I Heard the Bells on
Christmas Day” written by the American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
His
world had received one difficult emotional blow after another. Two years prior
to writing the poem “Christmas Bells,” from which the carol is derived, his
dear wife was killed in an accidental fire. Then in November 1864, his son,
Charles Appleton, a Union soldier in the Civil War, was seriously wounded in
the Battle of New Hope in Virginia. Longfellow was submerged in a world of
grief. Compounding all of this was the seemingly endless national tragedy of
the bloody Civil War. For years this war had deposited human tragedy into every
community in the country. On Christmas day 1864, encompassed by a world of pain,
Longfellow sat alone and penned his words of honest struggle and emotional
despair. He concluded with words of hope
that assuaged his own wounded heart. Eight years later the poem he wrote was
set to music by John Baptiste Calkin. Longfellow’s words, birthed in the midst
of turmoil, have over the years sounded a bright word of hope in a dark world
of despair.
Longfellow wrote how that Christmas the
bells announced a familiar message of “peace on earth, good-will to men.”
Events in his life, however, had caused him to question that joyous message. He
honestly admitted, “And in despair I bowed my head: ‘There is no peace on earth,’
I said.” He reasoned, “For hate is strong, and mocks the song, Of peace on
earth, good-will to men.” If he had stopped his poem there, how bleak his world
would have been. Thankfully he adds, “Then peeled the bells more loud and deep:
God is not dead: nor doth He sleep.’” When he allowed his view of life to be
impacted by the truth that God was not detached from human tragedy nor inactive
in the lives of people his perspective changed.
He confidently concludes his poem by
writing, “The wrong shall fail, the right prevail, With peace on earth,
good-will to men.” That realization changed his view of life. He noted, “The
world revolved from night to day.” His dark world of despair was altered by the
bright hope that a living active God can bring into a life shrouded in a cloak
of difficulty and uncertainty.
Several weeks ago in Germany I met a
Syrian Muslim refugee who joined the million refugees flooding into that country.
To say that this man was living in a world of hurt would be an understatement.
His home and business had been bombed into oblivion. He had fled the murderous
intentions of political leaders and terrorists to find a safe haven in Dresden,
Germany. There he heard the message from the Bible that Longfellow wrote about,
“God is not dead nor does he sleep.” He learned that God sent his Son, Jesus,
at Christmas. He discovered that he was so loved by God that that same Jesus
came to die for him and offered him a new life – one that is eternal. He
accepted that gift that God offered by His grace, believed, and is now identified
as a believer in Jesus Christ. This year he sees Christmas as a believer, not
as disbeliever. I saw the joy and peace in this man's face. He still lives in a
world of hurt and remains submerged in difficult circumstances. He has nothing
of this world's goods, but on the other hand he now has every blessing in
Christ Jesus. He has a perspective that is very different from the one he once
had.
Luke records Jesus’ birth announcement
made by angels saying, “I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to
all people. For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior,
who is Christ the Lord… ‘Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace,
goodwill toward men!’” (2:10-13). There is a message that can transform even
our deepest gloom into glorious hope!
