By the Rev. Daphne Hamborg
Bear Lake Concordia Church and St. Paul-Conger Lutheran Parish

“I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” is one of our classic Christmas carols, speaking of hope and encouragement, but its roots lie deep within the pain of its author, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

Although he was a successful poet with a cherished wife and five children he was forced to endure two tragedies during the Civil War. In July of 1861, Longfellow’s wife, Fanny, suffered fatal burns while handling a candle in the family library. She died the next morning. Then, in 1863, Longfellow received word that his oldest son, Charles, a lieutenant in the Union army, had been severely injured in battle. He was not killed, but he never recovered.

These two losses profoundly grieved Longfellow. He struggled to understand, to make sense of what had happened — especially in the context of his faith. On Christmas Day 1864 he sat down to express his pain and confusion in a poem. He called the poem “Christmas Bells,” but it was set to music and became known by its first line, “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.”

The song begins with gentle words and sentiments: “I heard the bells on Christmas Day their old familiar carols play.” It continues with the awareness that Christmas had been celebrated for centuries, bearing the reminder of hope for the world: “[I] 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!”

But all of Longfellow’s grief soon surfaced. His anguish became vividly clear: “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….’”

Longfellow was certainly not alone in his great pain. As so many of us know, losses can seem especially unbearable during the holidays. On Christmas Day 1861, five months after Fanny’s terrible death, he wrote in his journal, “How inexpressibly sad are all holidays.” Three years later he wrote one of his most famous poems — although perhaps the majority of its singers do not know that he was the author. The very bells that had grieved him during the prior three years had begun to sing a healing and hopeful song: “The 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!’”

I doubt that Longfellow ever fully recovered from his wife’s terrible death and his son’s terrible injury. He certainly couldn’t go back to the way things were before 1861 — which is why his grief was so deep. And yet he moved on to a new life. He began to put the losses in perspective. He began to find hope again, confidence in God’s love, and in life in God’s name.

Christmas does not say to us, “Life is easy.” It says to us, “God is present.”

Both of my congregations still ring their bells, at worship and at funerals. One bell rings through Conger. One bell rings across the wintry fields near Bear Lake. The bells break in on whatever thoughts or activities people are involved in. The bells can be beautiful. They might also be a little jarring, taking people by surprise. But the bells sing songs. Actually, they sing one song: “God is present. God’s love is here. God’s love is yours.”

Christmas is about God coming close, exquisitely close. Savor God with you. Listen for the bells of love, however they might ring in your heart. Know that the bells ring every day, in every place, for everyone. Christmas can be merry indeed.