I Heard the Bells on Chreistmas Day!

 

And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear. And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ ethe Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!” (Luke 2:8-14 ESV).

 

Our Christmas Carol for today is “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.” It has a wonderful history. It begins in the middle of the Civil War, in March of 1863, when 18-year-old Charles Appleton Longfellow of Cambridge, Massachusetts quietly left his family’s home, a colonial mansion that had served as General Washington’s headquarters from 1775 to 1776. Unbeknownst to his family, he boarded a train bound for Washington, D.C., traveling over 400 miles down the eastern seaboard to join President Lincoln’s Union army. He was the oldest of six children born to Fanny Elizabeth Appleton and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, the celebrated literary critic and poet. Less than two years earlier, Charles’s mother Fanny had tragically died after her dress caught on fire. Her husband, Henry, awakened from a nap, tried to extinguish the flames as best he could, first with a rug and then his own body, but she had already suffered severe burns. She died the next morning, and Henry Longfellow’s own burns were severe enough that he was unable even to attend his own wife’s funeral. He stopped shaving on account of the burns, growing a beard that would become associated with his image. At times he feared that he would be sent to an asylum on account of his grief.

 

When Charley (as he was called) arrived in Washington D.C., he sought to enlist as a private with the 1st Massachusetts Artillery. Captain W. H. McCartney, commander of Battery A, wrote to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow for written permission for Charley to become a soldier. HWL (as his son referred to him) granted the permission. Longfellow later wrote to his friends Charles Sumner (senator from Massachusetts), John Andrew (governor of Massachusetts), and Edward Dalton (medical inspector of the Sixth Army Corps) to lobby for his son to become an officer. But Charley had already impressed his fellow soldiers and superiors with his skills, and on March 27, 1863, he was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the 1st Massachusetts Cavalry, assigned to Company “G.”

 

At the Battle of Chancellorsville in Virginia (April 30–May 6, 1863) he saw no combat duty but spent his time guarding wagons. There Charley fell ill with “camp fever” and was sent home to recover for several months with his family. That summer, having missed the Battle of Gettysburg, he rejoined his unit on August 15, 1863. On the first day of that December, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was dining alone at his home when a telegram arrived with the news that his son had been severely wounded four days earlier. He had been shot through the left shoulder, with the bullet exiting under his right shoulder blade. It had traveled across his back and nicked his spine. Charley avoided being paralyzed by less than an inch.

 

He was carried into New Hope Church in Orange County, Virginia and then transported to the Rapidan River. Charley’s father and younger brother, Ernest, immediately set out for Washington, D.C., arriving on December 3. Charley arrived by train on December 5. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was alarmed when informed by the army surgeon that his son’s wound “was very serious” and that “paralysis might ensue.” Three surgeons gave a more favorable report that evening, suggesting a recovery that would require him to be “long in healing,” at least six months.

 

On Friday, December 25, 1863, Longfellow, as a 57-year-old widowed father of six children, the oldest of which had been nearly paralyzed as his country fought a war against itself, wrote a poem seeking to capture the dissonance in his own heart and the world he observes around him that Christmas Day. He heard the Christmas bells ringing in Cambridge and the singing of “peace on earth, good-will to men”, but he observed the world of injustice and violence that seemed to mock the truthfulness of this optimistic outlook. The theme of confident hope even during bleak despair is apparent throughout the poem.

 

What a contrast to the issue of time Magazine on April 8, 1966 as the cover asked, “Is God Dead?” In a world where we have a telescope in space looking to the far reaches of the universe and using the Hadron Collider to try to find the “God particle”, many people wonder if there is a need for God to explain the creation of the universe and our existence. They see God only as an uneducated person’s explanation of the universe instead of a divine person involved in our lives.

 

When we reduce God to just an explanation of creation, we allow Him to be seen as of no use and dead to society. When bad things happen in our culture, people always ask, “Where is God? Why did He allow that to happen?” But when we fail to put logs on a fire, we don’t ask, “Where is the heat? Why are we being allowed to freeze?” We can’t kick God out of our culture, schools, and government then ask where He is when bad things happen. He sent His Son into the world to bring life and light into our darkness. God is not dead, nor is He simply an explanation for our very being. He is a loving God who is involved in our daily lives. We were created with purpose and our lives have meaning. To think there is no God and that we are simply here by random chance is to say there is no right or wrong and that life has no meaning. God sent His Son to us to show us that we matter. He sent Him to show He cares about our struggles mentally, physically, and spiritually. He came to right the wrongs, to bring peace on earth, and goodwill to men.