CHRISTMAS BELLS! 🎊 JOYEUX NOËL!

 

Photo by S&B Vonlanthen on Unsplash

Sometimes, tears have a way of bringing clarity. They sure did for Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, an American poet who was born on February 27, 1807, and died on March 24, 1882, aged 75. When his wife, Mary Storer Potter died four years into their marriage and weeks after a miscarriage, he thought it was the worst thing that could happen to him, but he found love again and married Frances Appleton after seven years of courtship. They had six children together, and the family faced grief again when their third child and first daughter died as an infant.

More grief was soon to come, and very unexpectedly too, for one Tuesday afternoon, as Mrs Fanny Longfellow was making seals with candle wax to entertain her two youngest children at her library table, her dress caught fire, and almost immediately, she was engulfed in flames. To protect her daughters from the flames, she ran to her husband’s study. Henry Longfellow, who was asleep in his study, awakened to the screams, rushed to her assistance, and succeeded in quenching the fire with his body when he could not with a rug, but not without serious injury to himself. The doctors did all they could to treat husband and wife, but by the next morning, Mrs Longfellow was gone, 18 years after their marriage. Henry’s injury was so severe that he could not attend his wife’s funeral. His grief was even more severe, and he feared that he would permanently lose his mind. The first Christmas after Fanny’s death, he wrote, “How inexpressibly sad are all holidays.” The next Christmas, on December 25, 1862, he wrote, “’A merry Christmas’ say the children, but that is no more for me.”

Amidst his grief, barely two years after the death of his wife, he got another shocker. Without informing the family, his oldest son, Charles, joined President Abraham Lincoln’s Union army to fight in the Civil War in 1863. Henry tried to lobby for his son to become an officer, so he would not have to go to the war front, but Charles had wowed his superiors with his skills, and was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant. The family was joyed when Charles missed the Battle of Gettysburg (July 1-3, 1863), because he fell ill and was sent home to recover.

The war was still on when Charles recovered, so he rejoined his unit on August 15, 1863. On December 1, 1863, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was dining alone at his home, when he received a telegram with news that his son had been severely wounded. During a battle of the Mine Run Campaign, Charles had been shot through the left shoulder, with the bullet travelling across his back, nicking his spine, and exiting through his right shoulder. Immediately, Henry set out for Washington, D.C., where the army surgeon informed him that his son’s wound was profoundly serious and that Charles could be paralysed. Later, other surgeons gave a more favourable report that recovery was possible but would take at least six months.

On a Friday Christmas like today, on December 25, 1863, Professor Henry Longfellow, age 57, twice widowed, with his oldest son nearly paralyzed and his country at war and mainly over the injustice of slavery, heard the Christmas bells ringing in Cambridge where he lived, and the singing of “Peace on earth, good-will to men”, from Luke 2:14. The dissonance was vexing. Pain, sorrow, injustice, and violence seemed to mock the songs of “Peace on earth”. He said, “There is no peace on earth”. Instead of feeling joyful, he despaired and contemplated.

Maybe in that contemplation, he remembered the carol written in 1857 by John Henry Hopkins Jr., “Three Kings of Orient”, with one melancholy and distressing stanza inspired by one of the Magi’s gifts, which also foretold the destiny of the Son of God:

“Myrrh is mine; its bitter perfume

Breathes a life of gathering gloom; -

Sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying,

Sealed in the stone-cold tomb.”

Maybe he realized that the first Christmas itself was set in despair and the that the threat of death from Herod’s sword loomed over the new-born King of kings. Maybe he recalled the story written by Matthew, of how the Magi, having been warned in a dream, did not go back to Herod, but returned to their country by another route, and how Joseph, Mary and Jesus sought asylum in Egypt to escape from a power-drunk and violent king, and the evil edict Herod gave to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its environs who were two years old and under, and how Jeremiah’s prophecy was fulfilled:

“A voice is heard in Ramah,

Weeping and great mourning,

Rachel weeping for her children

And refusing to be comforted,

Because they are no more.” (Jeremiah 31:15).

He must have learned like I am learning that darkness is a core part of Christmas, recalling the confusing words of Jesus (Matthew 10: 34, “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.” Also, the lines from John 16, where Jesus warns his followers of more troubles to come, and the reassurance and promise of exceptional peace, “I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

Photo by Noah Silliman on Unsplash

We must acknowledge the presence of darkness in the world and absorb it into our celebrations so that we can dance with our burdens of grief, and not be driven to unbelief because of the many hurts this world offers. We must learn to look through our tears and see the light shining in the darkness, and joys and treasures amid horrors.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s contemplation led him to confident hope in the midst of despair. He composed a poem, a beautiful Christmas hymn, which was eventually put to music in 1872 by John Baptiste Calkin. My favourite rendition of the hymn is in the YouTube link at the end of this piece.

The story of Christmas is not over yet. It began that morning in a manger in Bethlehem and continued with the wonder child who became a man who healed the sick, raised the dead, and gave the best teachings. It continued with His shameful death on a cross, His resurrection, ascension, and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. It continues today, with the followers of Jesus, and it culminates in the promise of the Great Day when Jesus our Lord himself will come down from heaven, and he will overthrow the lawless one and destroy them with the breath of his mouth and the splendour of his coming, and he will heal the nations, and we will be with the Lord forever.

So, maybe Christmas is not the most wonderful time of the year for you. Maybe it is shadowed with grief and uncertainty for you. You are not alone. Look through the tears, even with your sorrow, and you will see the light. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow did, and he came to this conclusion:

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.”

Ring the Christmas Bells! Have yourself a very merry Christmas, and sing with hopeful expectation, ‘Peace on earth, good-will to all humans.” 🎄