Dec 7 - I Heard the Bells

I Heard the Bells

Thursday, December 7, 2023

By Patricia Lamb

Scripture: Isaiah 1:1-11 (NIV)

Key Verse:
Woe to the sinful nation, a people whose guilt is great, a brood of evildoers, children given to corruption! They have forsaken the Lord; they have spurned the Holy One of Israel and turned their backs on him. Isaiah 1:4

Isaiah’s words speak as clearly to us today as they have for millenia. War, political unrest, famine, flood, earthquakes, volcanoes, meteors, plague, tsunamis, all have decimated peoples of the earth. And as individuals, we experience the loss of loved ones, financial setbacks, betrayal by someone we trusted, devastating illness, and a world in chaos around us. We have a choice to make: Do we fall into despair and turn our backs on God?

I’m reminded of Longfellow’s hymn “I heard the bells on Christmas Day”. Within three years the Civil War began, his wife Fanny died of burns when her dress caught fire from a fallen match, his oldest son enlisted in the Union army and was shot within months, and his best friend Nathaniel Hawthorne died. 

On 1 Sep 1862 after the Battle of Manassas he wrote “I thought in the night of the pale, upturned faces of young men on the battlefield, and the agonies of the wounded; and my wretchedness was very great. Every shell from the cannon’s mouth bursts not only on the battlefield, but in far-away homes, North or South, carrying dismay and death.”

And yet, on Christmas Day 1864 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote the poem “I heard the bells on Christmas Day”.

I heard the bells on Christmas Day

Their old, familiar carols play,

and mild and sweet

The words repeat

Of peace on earth, good-will 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, 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."

Till ringing, singing on its way,

The world revolved from night to day,

A voice, a chime,

A chant sublime

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

As promised in Isaiah 9: The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light: they who dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined. 

And the Prince of Peace will come.

Almighty God, kindle, we pray, in every heart the true love of

peace, and guide with your wisdom those who take counsel

for the nations of the earth, that in tranquility your dominion

may increase until the earth is filled with the knowledge of your

love; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with

you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for

ever. Amen.

(Online) Book of Common Prayer