I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day: A Timeless Message for the Coming Trump Era

Christmas is here. Donald Trump is already acting as if he is President. the message of the season stands against him and against all that he stands.

Christmas 2024 comes amid social and religious turmoil not seen since the 1850s that led up to the American Civil War. Trump spoke of using the military against neighboring countries, critical trading and transportation partners and NATO allies, even as he continues threaten millions of people with deportation, political opponents with prison, and senior military officers and officials with removal in order to replace them with loyalists. His words are laced with threats of violence, and even killing political opponents. Many of his supporters threaten the same, even preachers. And all of this is condoned by supposedly Christian people. Trump demanded their fealty and they willingly gave it to him. In 26 days he will be in power and the dogs of war and chaos will be sent forth.

In perilous times I reach back to history and often music that came out of that previous war and tumult.

The great American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow penned these words of hope on Christmas Day, 1863:

“God is not dead, nor doth He sleep; The wrong shall fail, the right prevail With peace on earth, good will to men.”

I feel that Longfellow’s words are as pertinent this Christmas as when he first penned them. The thought of what is to come in the next few years, in the United States and in many other liberal democracies bodes ill for our future as authoritarian and often xenophobic leaders like Trump rise to power. The world that people of my age grew up is passing away. A dystopian world where hope will be a rare commodity beckons in its place.

Longfellow’s words became the heart of the Christmas song, I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day. I have thought about it often during the Advent season.

Several versions by different of the song have been recorded and performed artists over the years. However, the words of the go back to the Civil War. Longfellow wrote them on Christmas Day 1863 following the serious wounding of his son Charles, a Lieutenant in the Union Army at the Battle of New Hope Church during the Mine Run Campaign (not to be confused with a battle of the same name outside Atlanta in 1864) and the death of his wife in a fire two years before. Like many in December 1863, Longfellow had much to despair about. But he maintained a faith in God, as well as the founding principles of the United States.

Longfellow’s words are haunting. Probably because they demonstrate the profound tension that lies at the heart of the Incarnation, which is the heart of Christmas and the Christian faith. That tension, which is played out so well in the song lyrics is the existence of a message of peace and reconciliation.

We live in a world where war and hatred of many kinds rip human beings apart coupled with the tragic inability of Christendom, especially American Conservative Evangelicals and Roman Catholics to even come close to living the message of Christmas. It is this world to which Longfellow spoke.

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.

I thought how, as the day had come,

The belfries of all Christendom

Had rolled along th’ unbroken song

Of peace on earth, good will to men.

But the bitter reality of the is seen in the third verse. The words echo throughout history as well as today. It seems to be the most real in times of war, hatred, terrorism, killing in the name of God, and political fratricide.

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.”

However, Longfellow’s poem contains three verses omitted from the song. Those verses speak to the heart of the Civil War, and speak of a reunited Union.

Till ringing, singing on its way,
The world revolved from night to day,

A voice, a chime, A chant sublime

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Then from each black, accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,

And with the sound, The carols drowned

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearth-stones of a continent,

And made forlorn, The households born

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Longfellow hears in the bells something more powerful, than even a reunited Union. It was the message of Christmas and the incarnation. The message that justice and peace will finally embrace.

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.”

Till ringing, singing on its way

The world revolved from night to day,

A voice, a chime, a chant sublime

Of peace on earth, good will to men.

The song has been recorded many times by many artists. I like the version sung by Frank Sinatra, in which the music was composed by Johnny Marks, composer of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. Another earlier version was composed by John Baptiste Calkin, and recorded by Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash, among others.

Wars rage in Ukraine and the Middle East, China threatens Asia, and Putin threatens Eastern Europe. The Unholy Trinity of Politicians, Pundits and Preachers, led by the President Elect rage as we enter another more perilous year. So with the possibility of nuclear war more probably than in many years, people still look for hope.

Longfellow, who lost so much in a short time during that terrible Civil War, reminds us that in such times, “God is not dead, nor doth He sleep; The wrong shall fail, the right prevail With peace on earth, good will to men.”

In a time like when President Elect seems to be willing to plunge our country and the world into the abyss, it is important to remember Longfellow’s words and the message of the Incarnation, peace, and reconciliation.

Yes, the wrong shall fail, and the right prevail and the age of Trump it will certainly involve much travail. As for the travail, it is just beginning.