Sermon

St. Philip's Episcopal Church, Durham, NC

December 24, 2007 - Christmas Eve Service

The Rev. Vicki L. Smith

What’s your favorite Christmas carol?  It’s hard to choose, isn’t it?  There are so many wonderful songs and I know that at least my choice varies from year to year, depending on what’s going on and what aspect of the Christmas story I most need to hear at that time. 

This year my choice for favorite carol is a little unusual—it isn’t even in our hymnal!  My choice this year is: “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day,” particularly the recording by Harry Belafonte (which is surely part of why I like it so much).  I didn’t really even know this carol until a few years ago, when I listened to it all the way through for the first time.  Until then, it sounded fairly secular, about bells and the holiday and not terribly meaningful.  But its story and the last few verses really pack a punch that is especially striking this Christmas Eve. 

A little background: the carol is based on a poem written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in 1864.  Those were dark days in both Longfellow’s life and in our country.  It was in the midst of the war between the states.  There was tremendous suffering on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line, and the war seemed endless.  Longfellow himself had endured the tragic death of his wife, and his son had been severely wounded in battle.  In the midst of all that, on Christmas Day, 1864, Longfellow wrote “The Christmas Bells.”  It opens with the verse we all know well:

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!

Longfellow goes on with more verses to recount the struggles of life, finally summing them up in the verse:

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!

Those words resonate with me, and perhaps with you as well.  While these days are not so dark as his, we are again a country at war, there are many who are hungry and cold this night, loss and sorrow strikes us all, and we ourselves, or those we love, are all too often wounded and hurting.  We know only too well all the ways darkness has touched our lives, and all the times we’ve been overwhelmed by personal, national or the world’s sorrow.  Longfellow expresses very well what many of us are feeling this holy night.

But his poem does not end there, not with despair and sadness. Listen to the last verse:

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!

In “The Bells of Christmas Day,” Longfellow heard the fulfillment of Isaiah’s words: the people who walk in darkness have seen a great light, those who live in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shined.

That night in Bethlehem, so long ago, God’s light came into our dark world.  God’s love came among us in a way it never had before and we and our world were changed forever.  That holy child, the incarnation of God’s love, was the bearer of peace and the bringer of hope.  That night, peace on earth, good will toward men came to us.

We’re not naïve, though and we haven’t put on rose-colored glasses.  Earth’s sorrows are no less real than they ever were.  And yet, despite that, our world is changed, and we are changed.  Importantly, we are no longer alone in our struggles and we never will be again, for Emmanuel has come. Christ is with us.  We are loved and sustained by Jesus regardless of what the world may bring.  Every aspect of human life, every thought, every pain, every prayer, is known to Christ, and we are held in his love forever. That is a Christmas gift from God.

Also, the holy child born this night is the incarnation of hope – the embodiment of the light of Christ coming into our darkness and the hope of Christ’s kingdom pointing us to his of peace and joy.  The child in the manger is God’s promise that things will not always be as they are now.  The wrong will fail and the right prevail; sorrow and pain will be no more and there will be peace on earth – in our lives, in our hearts, in our relationships, and in our world.  That is God’s promise, and it comes to us wrapped in a baby, lying in a manger.

As John Indermark writes: The miracle remains for us to experience by opening our lives to God who still would come to us. Even on our off days, even when we cannot see stars or do not feel like singing carols, even then, God’s love incarnate seeks in us a dwelling, a birthing, where our spirits may be filled with the Word whose light shines in any and all darkness.

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!

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