If anyone in this world had an excuse to curse God and renouncetheir faith, it was Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. By 1863 when he wrote his famous poem,”Christmas Bells”, better known to us as, “I Heard The Bells On Christmas Day”, his life had racked withgrief and pain. In 1834, after 4 years of marriage, his first wife experienced a miscarriage. A few weeks later passed away at the age of 22. In 1861, after 18 years of marriage, his second wife died in a tragic fire in their home that left Longfellow himself so badly scarred from trying to rescue her, that he wore a thick beard the rest of his life to cover the wounds. In 1863, Longfellow's oldest son was severely wounded in the Battle of Mine Run during the Civil War. His son eventually recovered, but his time as a soldier was finished.
When Longfellow wrote his poem on Christmas Day in 1863, after the loss of two spouses and uncertainty of his son’s survival, he must have felt every word deep in his soul.
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!"
Now…Imagine the kind of hopeful faith Wadsworth would have had to have in order to write the next verse.
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."
Nearly every time I hear these lyrics, I am overcome. No matter what it looks like in our present moment, God that has not left us in alone our darkness. The Divine has entered our darkness and taken it upon himself, bearing the marks on his body. This is the expectant hope of Advent. Christ has not just come into the world, he has overcome it.