“I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day”

Merry Christmas, everyone. Christmas is a family-centered celebration, and you are my extended family!

• Very extended, with members in 130 nations around the world.

• Today, we celebrate the One who came into this world to save all the nations.

• Our mission is to preach the everlasting gospel to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, (Revelation 14:6)

Thank you for celebrating Jesus with us, the Lamb of God who takes away our sin and brings Joy to the World! Merry Christmas! - Ken

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“I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” was written in 1863 by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow during one of the darkest seasons of his life. His wife had recently died in a tragic fire. His son had been badly wounded in the Civil War. The nation itself seemed to be torn apart.

In that setting, Longfellow listens to the Christmas bells — and writes honestly of despair before arriving at hard-won Christian hope. Because the poem is now in the public domain, we can share it here in full. Read it slowly, as a prayer rising out of suffering, and as a confession that God is neither absent nor asleep.

Few Christmas poems do this as honestly as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day. (1863)

I heard the bells on Christmas Day

Their old, familiar carols play,

And wild 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.

Till, ringing, singing on its way,

The world revolved from night to day,

A voice, a chime,

A chant sublime

Of peace on earth, goodwill to men.

Then from each black, accursed mouth

The cannon thundered in the South,

And with the sound

The carols drowned

Of peace on earth, good-will to men.

It was as if an earthquake rent

The hearthstones of a continent,

And made forlorn

The households born

Of peace on earth, goodwill 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, goodwill 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, goodwill 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, goodwill to men.

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Longfellow did not write this poem from comfort or peace. He wrote it in 1863, in the midst of the American Civil War. His wife had died tragically in a fire. His son had been gravely wounded in battle. The nation itself was torn apart. If ever a man had reason to doubt Christmas cheer, it was Longfellow.

And he does not hide that doubt.

“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.’”

This is Christmas spoken honestly. The world looks much the same today. Wars rage. Hatred hardens. Peace feels fragile, distant, even mocked. Longfellow allows us to say what many feel but hesitate to confess.

Yet the poem does not end there.

Slowly, almost reluctantly, hope breaks through—not from circumstances, but from truth:

“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.’”

This is not sentimental optimism. It is Christian defiance. Longfellow does not deny suffering; he denies its final word. The bells do not ring because the world is healed, but because God has entered it.

The angels did not sing into a peaceful world, but into a violent one ruled by Rome. The Child was not born into safety, but into danger. Herod’s shadow already lay across the manger. And yet heaven spoke:

“Glory to God in the highest,and on earth peace, good will toward men.” (Luke 2:14)

Peace, in Scripture, does not begin with the silence of arms. It begins with the presence of God.

Today, we do not pretend the darkness is gone. We light a candle instead. We listen for bells that ring deeper than despair.

We affirm, with Longfellow and with the Church through the ages, that God is not dead, nor does He sleep.

The Child has come. The Light shines today. And the bells still ring.

A Prayer for Christmas Day

Lord Jesus, born for us and with us, fill our hearts with Your peace and our lives with Your light. Amen.

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1. Angels we have heard on high,

Sweetly singing o'er the plains,

And the mountains in reply

Echoing their joyous strains.

Refrain:

Gloria in excelsis Deo.

Gloria in excelsis Deo.

2. Shepherds, why this jubilee?

Why your joyous strains prolong?

What the gladsome tidings be

Which inspire your heavn'ly song? [Refrain]

3. Come to Bethlehem and see

Him whose birth the angels sing.

Come, adore on bended knee

Christ the Lord, the newborn King. [Refrain]

4. See him in a manger laid,

Whom the choirs of angels praise.

Mary, Joseph, lend your aid

While our hearts in love we raise. [Refrain]

-- written in 1862 by James Chadwick, a Roman Catholic bishop in England. The lyrics are based on a traditional French carol called "Les Anges dans nos campagnes."