Monday Ministerial Musings
By Rev. Mark William Ennis
2023 Blog #50
December 18, 2023
“I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” makes sense to me
Since I can remember I have loved the Christmas Carol, “I heard the bells on Christmas Day.” I don’t know what attracted me to this carol when I first heard it, but somehow it spoke to me, and it quickly became one of my favorite songs of the Christmas season. It was later that I learned the history of the carol and liked it even more.
It was written, of course, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, the famous writer of the 1800’s. He was a war correspondent during the American Civil War, and he knew personal suffering. His wife was killed in a kitchen fire. He attempted to rescue her and was badly burned in the same fire. He grew the beard that he is now famous for, because of the scaring on his face because of the fire.
If this was not enough suffering, his son was a soldier in the Union army who was severely wounded in the war. Longfellow was unsure if his son would live or die. This anxiety added to the grief he felt for his deceased wife, and the physical scaring that he had received.
As Christmas approached, he knew the horrors of war and the suffering that war caused. The loud sounds of battle seemed to compete with the sounds of church bells ringing in the celebration of Christmas. His carol is a carol of hope that the Christmas bells of hope would ultimately win against the sounds of violence and suffering.
I think about this carol whenever I hear news reports of the Israeli/Hamas war that is so much a part of our current news reporting. The Holy Land is in flames as the war continues. Civilian deaths escalate, and Israeli hostages have now been reported to have been killed by Israeli soldiers. This Christmas we will celebrate while the noises, deaths, and destruction will continue. The violence has even escalated as the Israeli military has increased even in the occupied West Bank.
Little more than a year ago, just six weeks before Christmas, I spent time on the West Bank. I remember thinking that Christmas was only a short time away as I overlooked the fields where it was said that the shepherds were tending their flocks when angels appeared and announced the birth of Jesus. Behind us was the place where it is said that Jesus was born. It was a peaceful place then, but I can only imagine how much strife and injuries are occurring in that formerly, quiet place.
Thinking of the military operations in the West Bank, and the major war being conducted in Gaza, I can better understand the conflict that was within Longfellow as he heard church bells amid war, fear, and grief. The world is often in conflict with the peace and justice that we look forward to.
We, who strive to live faithfully, often mourn that God’s righteous kingdom is so slow in coming. We hear the evil noises of the world even as we listen to the quieter sounds of God’s kingdom. Longfellow lived in hope, that the sweet music of the church bells would ultimately win over the sounds of war, and he celebrated this hope by writing this carol.
In the same way, I live in hope. I live believing that God’s light will ultimately overcome the warfare of this world. We who are faithful hold on to this hope and continue to be lights in a dark world and the joyful sounds of God’s music during the evil noises of the world. Let us be faithful being the joyful sounds and bright lights in a world that needs both.
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