Wednesday, December 25, 2024
The Nativity of the Lord
Christmas Day
The First Day of Christmas
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
We hear the bells of Christmas day
Hark! The sentinels raise a cry, together they shout for joy for they see the Lord restoring Zion. Break out together in song, for the Lord comforts his people.
Death is a beginning, not the end.
All the ends of the earth will behold the salvation of our God.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow loved Christmas. Then in a terrible fire on July 9, 1861 his wife Frances was killed and he was badly burned. He lay in a hospital bed while his beloved wife of 17 years was buried, mourned by their six children.
In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God.
He was in the beginning with God.
All things came to be through him,
and without him nothing came to be.
But Christmas no longer held the promise and the wonder Henry had known before. Then in the third year of the American Civil War, his son Charles joined the Union Army without his father’s blessing. Charles left Henry this note: “I have tried hard to resist the temptation of going without your leave but I cannot any longer. I feel it to be my first duty to do what I can for my country and I would willingly lay down my life for it if it would be of any good.” In November Charles was severely wounded, but not killed.
What came to be through him was life,
and this life was the light of the human race;
the light shines in the darkness,
and the darkness has not overcome it.
On Christmas Day that year of 1863, not knowing whether his son would survive, the great American poet wrote “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day,” seven stanzas that struggle through despair and emerge triumphant. Edward K. Herrmann recounts the story as the Mormon Tabernacle Choir sings behind him.
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, good-will 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 hearth-stones of a continent,
And made forlorn
The households born
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.
It is just as easy to say there is no peace on earth on this day, December 25, 2024. Peace among us is shallow, fragile and often goes to pieces in front of our eyes. In this failure of our own works, our own doing, John’s words about Jesus ring around us, like the bells Longfellow heard, pealing every Sunday and especially today, on Christmas Day.
And the Word became flesh
and made his dwelling among us,
and we saw his glory,
the glory as of the Father’s only Son,
full of grace and truth.
From his fullness we have all received,
Grace in place of grace.
(Isaiah 52, Psalm 98, Hebrews 1, John 1)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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