Our Daily Bread: O Holy NightSample

The Seventh Stanza

Look, I am making everything new! -Revelation 21:5

In 1861, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s wife died tragically in a fire.

That first Christmas without her, he wrote in his diary, “How inexpressibly sad are the holidays.” The next year was no better, as he recorded, “‘A merry Christmas,’ say the children, but that is no more for me.”

The Civil War dragged on. Longfellow’s son was badly wounded. As church bells announced the arrival of another painful Christmas, Longfellow picked up his pen to write, “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.”

The poem begins pleasantly, lyrically, but soon takes a dark turn. The violence of the pivotal fourth verse seems ill-suited for a Christmas carol.

“Accursed” cannons “thundered,” mocking the message of peace. By the fifth and sixth verses, Longfellow’s desolation is nearly complete. “It was as if an earthquake rent the hearthstones of a continent,” he wrote. The poet nearly gave up. “And in despair I bowed my head; ‘There is no peace on earth,’ I said.”

But from the depths of that bleak Christmas, Longfellow heard the irrepressible sound of hope. And he wrote this seventh stanza. 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.”

The war raged on, but it couldn’t stop Christmas. The Messiah is born! He promises, “I am making everything new!” in Revelation 21:5. Change is in the air.

Tim Gustafson

When have you faced despair? How does the promise of Revelation 21 give you hope?

Today’s scripture reading is from the book of Revelation, chapter 21, verses 1-5.

(Read today’s scripture.)

Let’s pray…

Dear God, we long for the day when You will make all things new.