Bells on Christmas Day

I have a new year's resolution: blog more. And more importantly make it my blog and not try and emulate the work of others. So with that in mind, I am not going to wait until the perfect analogy or the perfect illustration come along to illustrate what I am learning/musing on. I may not even wait until my thoughts are fully formed.

So basically what you are going to get from me is a one side stream of conscience conversation (which you can make two sided if you add comments).

So with the business of business out of the way let's begin.

I have heard the Christmas story at least once for the last 33 years*. I have participated in Advent celebrations at home and in the Church. I have written and read monologues for school and church events. I have taught the story and all it means countless times to the next generation. And yet it remains new. There is always another lesson in shepherds who are sore afraid or angels singing in Latin.

Just when I think I have seen the narrative from every angle another one presents itself. One of the things I appreciate most about Grace @ Night is the willingness of the leadership to ask the hard questions. To speak on the problem of pain, to speak about how the world truly sees the Church and how we are to respond. This December they asked the simple question, "If Jesus' birth was to bring peace on earth, where is it?"

Where indeed? The old adage, "just turn on your tv and you can see..." truly applies to the lack of peace in our world. Well then maybe the peace Christ is to bring is about inner peace and inner wellness. Or maybe better yet it is the peace of the future rule of Christ on earth. While these statements are true, and begin to answer the question, they are not enough.

Neither answer satisfies. Honestly, stop and dwell on the concept that the angels proclaimed Christ's birth would bring peace on earth (Luke 2:14), and yet it is not here. They didn't say it would come through the work of Christ on the cross, they didn't say that it would come when the book of Revelation unfolds. They said we proclaim, "on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests." And yes, the cross and the Second Coming ushered in and will usher in peace between God and man unlike what had been/will be seen before, but what of the "now" promised by the angels?

You know why this question while seemingly simple is a loaded one? Because if the angels on the night of Christ's birth were give to hyperbole, if the mouthpieces of God were overstating or worse yet lying about why this baby was so important, can we trust anything else the New Testament says? I know, the question sucks. It raises legitimate theological kinks in the armor that is the Good News of Christ.

And this question isn't new. In 1863 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote a poem entitled I Hear the Bells on Christmas Day. In the poem, Longfellow laments, "'There is no peace on earth,' I said, 'For hate is strong and mocks the song Of peace on earth, good will to men.'" In 2008, Mark Hall of Casting Crown used the poems as lyrics for a song of the same title.listen here

You will note at the song's conclusion Longfellow states, "God is not dead, nor doth He sleep. The wrong shall fail, the right prevail, with peace on earth good will to men." How can Longfellow say this? What happens between stanza three and four to bring about this change? If we look only the lyrics we find that the bells simply pealed more loud and deep. Fat lot of good that does us (or at least me). I still look around at my world and see strife and war (much of it done in Christ's name).


There are two things that need to be stated for us to reach the same conclusion as Longfellow. The first is to look at the word peace. In the original text the word peace carries with it the Jewish understanding of peace or more accurately the understanding of the word shalom. Shalom is greater than peace.


In English we see the word peace and think of its antithesis war. Peace is often defined as the absence of conflict. Shalom carries with it the weight of things being as they should be. Shalom doesn't simply mean that there is no fighting, it is a condition where all the parties involved are in harmony. I was once teaching Sunday School and asked the children what peace was. One little boy answered, "It is where everyone sits at the table and gets along." I like this definition.


However, this only brings us back to the original question. Where's the peace? (And yes in my head that last sentence sounds like a little old lady upset with her hamburger.) And more importantly it raises the question "How can we obtain peace?" The answer to this question lets us in on the secret Longfellow heard in those bells one hundred thirty-seven years ago. More importantly it brings us back to the meaning of Christmas and the answer to how the angels could state that the birth of Jesus would bring this peace.


The story of Christmas isn’t the whole story. In fact it isn’t even the start of the story. The story starts with Adam and Eve in the book of Genesis. The story starts with things the way they should be. It begins with shalom. Then the serpent, and the lies, and separation of man from his Creator. Then several chapters of some pretty messed up people trying to get back to God. Thousands of years go by and shalom isn’t ever fully reached. The separation of God and His creation is mended by sacrifice, and broken by lies. And so the cycle goes. Then one day there were shepherds standing out by thy flocks at night, and suddenly…

Suddenly the angels appear. Suddenly everything is different. Suddenly the great gulf fixed between man and God has a way across. The first act is the Old Testament (and you thought the prologue in Fellowship of the Rings was drawn out). The second act is the Nativity and the life of Christ. The third act is the death and Resurrection of our Lord and Savior.

Ephesians 2:13-14 states: But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ. For He himself is our peace. Second Thessalonians 3:16 states: Now may the Lord of peace himself give you peace at all times and in every way. The Lord be with all of you.

This peace that we seek must come from God. As humans we can love, we can create, we can bring justice, we nurture, and we can even reconcile that which is broken into a state of newness. But we can NOT generate peace. Just as grace is something wholly given by God to man, so is peace. This is why it is so hard to find peace (whether it is lack of war, inner peace, or even peace between man and God). Because it doesn’t come from us. It can’t come from us. It can only come from Christ. It can only come if God enters our world. It can only come from a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying a manger. It can only come from a deity wrapped in veils of flesh and hanging on a cross.

And the Christmas message of peace is even greater than “without Christmas there is no Easter.” For the baby born to Mary and Joseph was not the start of the story. It was the climax, the resolution. The birth of Jesus, Emmanuel (my favorite name of Christ by the way), is literally the first time since the garden that peace has come to earth.

And to that, I add my voice to the angels and sing, “Glory to God in the highest!”

Serving Him alongside all of you, just from further away,
Jesse Letourneau

*Yes, I know I am 32, but being born in September my first Christmas was before my first birthday, and thus when I was one it was my second Christmas, and so on... Also I "saw" Star Wars (A New Hope) in vitro, but that is another story for another day.