{"id":36995,"date":"2021-12-02T20:41:00","date_gmt":"2021-12-02T20:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/carol-for-despairing\/"},"modified":"2021-12-02T20:41:00","modified_gmt":"2021-12-02T20:41:00","slug":"carol-for-despairing","status":"publish","type":"sermon-illustrations","link":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/carol-for-despairing\/","title":{"rendered":"A Carol for the Despairing"},"content":{"rendered":"

“I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” is a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, later set to music. It was written over the Christmas of either 1863 or 1864, in the middle of the bloodiest war in American history.<\/p>\n\n

The carol’s first verse is familiar and peaceful:<\/p>\n\n

\n

I heard the bells on Christmas day<\/p>\n

Their old familiar carols play;<\/p>\n

In music sweet the tones repeat,<\/p>\n

“There’s peace on earth, good will to men.”<\/p>\n

\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

But the carol is not cotton candy; it is a beating heart, laid bare. It’s a carol that still rings true today. By the third stanza we sing:<\/p>\n\n

\n

And in despair I bowed my head;<\/p>\n

“There is no peace on earth,” I said;<\/p>\n

“For hate is strong,<\/p>\n

And mocks the song<\/p>\n

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!”<\/p>\n

\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Longfellow wrote to his friend Henry Ingersoll Bowditch in 1866, “The death of the young men in the war . . . makes my heart bleed whenever I think of it. How much I have felt for you. Particularly on that cold December night when I came back with my son, and saw you at the station and knew that yours would come back to you no more.”<\/p>\n\n

This is the landscape in which Longfellow wrote “Christmas Bells.” We aren’t currently entrenched in a literal civil war, but the cracks in our country’s foundation are splitting wider. People with power abuse it; people without it suffer. Day after day, the news cycles through horrors. Many days, it feels a little bit like the end of the world—like an apocalypse.<\/p>\n\n

But then Longfellow brings the gospel to bear in the final triumphant stanza:<\/p>\n\n

\n

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:<\/p>\n

“God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;<\/p>\n

The Wrong shall fail,<\/p>\n

The Right prevail,<\/p>\n

With peace on earth, good-will to men.’”<\/p>\n

\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Possible Preaching Angle:<\/h2>\n\n

God is bringing his kingdom to us. The last thing we see in the Bible is an image of “a new heaven and a new earth,” with “no more death or mourning or crying or pain” (Rev. 21:1, 4). The world is always ending, but one day, it will end. Justice is never done, but one day, it will roll down like a river.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"template":"","tax_ctp_audience":[],"tax_ctp_authors":[],"tax_ctp_categories":[165],"tax_ctp_format":[171],"tax_ctp_illustration_types":[411],"tax_ctp_multimedia":[],"tax_ctp_point_editor":[433],"tax_publications":[140],"tax_ctp_tags":[3387,3600,3766,3822,4198,4325,4326,4327,4391,4539,4540,4569,4615,4706,4802,5103,5238,5260],"tax_ctp_topics":[386,394],"class_list":["post-36995","sermon-illustrations","type-sermon-illustrations","status-publish","hentry","tax_publications-ct-pastors","tax_ctp_tags-advent","tax_ctp_tags-christmas","tax_ctp_tags-despair","tax_ctp_tags-division","tax_ctp_tags-hymns","tax_ctp_tags-kingdom-of-christ","tax_ctp_tags-kingdom-of-god","tax_ctp_tags-kingdom-of-heaven","tax_ctp_tags-loss","tax_ctp_tags-new-creation","tax_ctp_tags-new-earth","tax_ctp_tags-oppression","tax_ctp_tags-peace","tax_ctp_tags-prince-of-peace","tax_ctp_tags-renewal","tax_ctp_tags-suffering","tax_ctp_tags-violence","tax_ctp_tags-war"],"acf":{"scripture_references":[{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null}]},"yoast_head":"\nA Carol for the Despairing - CT Pastors<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/carol-for-despairing\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Carol for the Despairing - CT Pastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"“I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” is a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, later set to music. 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