Last night we took the kids to the Portland Symphony Orchestra “Magic of Christmas.”  It was amazing.  They ended with “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.”  The conductor said they wanted to find the perfect song to promote peace in the Christmas season during these crazy times of ISIS, school shootings and terror.  The words of the song come from Portland native poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

“Peace on earth, good will to men” always conjured up a feel good image in my brain.  A warm fuzzy phrase to share during the Christmas season.  Boy was I wrong.  Wadsworth wrote the poem during the Civil War.  It was a poem of lamentation, questioning and pain.  He had lost his wife, his son had been critically injured in the Civil War.  He saw war, death and suffering all around.  Wadsworth heard the sounds of Christmas bells amid the pain and couldn’t help but question,

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!”

But Wadsworth catches himself.  Even amidst the pain and suffering he finds hope.  He finds God in his darkest hour.  That is the message of Christmas.  “Emmanuel” means “God with us”.  Let us not despair in the violence, pain and suffering of our times.  Let us remember that a child was born thousands of years ago to give us hope.  To remind us that God is not some far off “Oz” in the heavens above, pulling strings and judging from above, but rather he came as a small child born in a barn to be with us and for us here on earth in our darkest moments.  In the end, good prevails.  God prevails.  As Wadsworth concludes,

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.”

Merry Christmas.