MERRY CHRISTMAS ANYWAY
- Dan Held Ministries
- Dec 23, 2025
- 4 min read
What a year it has been. If suffering has not reached us personally, no doubt it has touched others we know and care about. "Peace on earth, goodwill to men" may seem like magical thinking to you. One step above Santa Claus lore.
If only.
There are years like that for all of us. Years when we just don't feel it. And can't imagine it within our own minds.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow faced such a year. It was 1864. Our nation had been at war with ourselves. The Civil War had claimed hundreds of thousands of young lives, and had maimed Henry's own son, Charley, for life. And this followed the tragic death of his wife, Fanny, who had burned to death in a house fire back in the summer of 1861.........a trauma Henry himself had relived a thousand times over in his still troubled mind. Hard years for Henry had taken their toll. He had become a cynic. And another Christmas found him not in the mood. Not in the least.
But Henry was a poet, and a well published author who had always lived by the pen and abhorred those who lived by the sword. Or by the terrible weapons of war. Now, at age 57, he did what was his custom when filled with a spirit of melancholy. He took out a pen and paper and started to write about what his senses were gathering for his mind to consider.
There were church bells ringing. But for what? For whom? Surely not for Henry and his own family. Or for his own United States of America as the Civil War continued.
The bells of Cambridge rang out their yearly message of “peace on earth, good will to men,” but such biblical promises seemed to mock the reality of his world. Yet as he listened, something profound began to stir in his poet’s heart. With pen in hand, he began to write. It was all he knew to do in coping with the utter angst of another Christmas when hope itself seemed so terribly unreal, when love itself seemed too good to be true.
I heard the bells on Christmas day
Their old familiar carols play;
In music sweet the tones repeat,
“There’s 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.
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.”
Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
“God is not dead, nor does He sleep,
For Christ is here; His Spirit near
Brings peace on earth, good will to men.”
When men repent and turn from sin
The Prince of Peace then enters in,
And grace imparts within their hearts
His peace on earth, good will to men.
O souls amid earth’s busy strife,
The Word of God is light and life;
Oh, hear His voice, make Him your choice,
Hail peace on earth, good will to men.
Then happy, singing on your way,
Your world will change from night to day;
Your heart will feel the message real,
Of peace on earth, good will to men.
It was Henry's way of saying "Merry Christmas anyway." Not because he felt it, but because he needed it. Perhaps more than ever he needed it. He needed to believe that somehow there really was a God who had come to earth, lowering Himself to the lowest of the lowly first at his birth and last at his death. A God who was trying to say not so much in words of preaching as in actions of circumstance that He understood our rejection, our pain, our despair, our humility, our angst.
Thinking of it in that way brought Henry an altogether different feeling. Christmas comes not in our best of times but in our worst. Not on our lightest of days but on our heaviest. Not in our brightest but in our darkest moments. If the world was already at peace, and if good will already existed, there would be no point in Christmas. No need for the bells to ring forth a single sound.
No.
We don't hear the bells of Christmas ringing when all else heard is good news in the world. In the nation. In the family. But only when all else we must listen to feels hurtful, lonesome, empty, and hopeless. It's only in our times of feeling "lowly" and "less than" that God reveals His own lowliness and loneliness of circumstance. Born in a stable. Lain in a manger. Literally homeless. And then threatened with death requiring his parents' refuge- seeking across the border and out of Herod's evil jurisdiction as governor of Judea.
It wouldn't have been Christmas for Henry Wadsworth Longfellow were it not for the sounds of suffering everywhere except ....................except in the bells on Christmas day. Except in the Christ of Christmas. Except in God's most humble companionship with us within that Christ-child, as if to say "me too." And as if to add, "I get it. I understand you. We're in this together. And together we can bring peace on earth, goodwill to people now living in darkness and despair. Merry Christmas anyway."
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