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"Christmas Carol for a War-Torn World"“I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” is a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, later set to music. It was written during the Christmas of 1863 in the middle of the bloodiest war in American history. The carol’s first verse is familiar and peaceful…I heard the bells on Christmas dayTheir old familiar carols play;In music sweet the tones repeat,“There’s peace on earth, good will to men.”But the carol is not cotton candy; it is a beating heart, laid bare. By the third stanza we’re singing…And in despair I bowed my head;“There is no peace on earth,” I said;“For hate is strong,And mocks the songOf peace on earth, good-will to men!”Longfellow wrote to a friend, “The death of the young men in the war makes my heart bleed... 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 knowing yours would come back no more.”That’s the landscape in which Longfellow wrote his carol. He could have written it today. People are dying in wars in Europe, wars in the Middle East, and in the streets of our cities. Day after day, the news cycles through horrors. For many it feels like the world is coming to an apocalypse. But then Longfellow brings the gospel to bear in the final triumphant 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.’”God is bringing his kingdom to earth. The last thing in the Bible is “a new heaven and a new earth,” with “no more death or mourning or crying or pain…and justice will roll down like a river.”