Betty Owens Geary, Member Gene Decker Study Class, former Executive Committee Chair

John 16:33, CEB
“I’ve said these things to you so that you will have peace in me. In the world you have distress. But be encouraged! I have conquered the world.”

Reflection:
Peace seems hard to come by this season.  We are divided as a country.  Our lives have been turned upside down by a pandemic that has taken us all by surprise.  Too many have been ill or have lost loved ones.  Even those of us who have escaped the virus are grieving for other losses—plans to travel, our usual family gatherings for the holidays, even everyday activities like going to school or going to a restaurant with friends. 

And we are so divided.  Many of us mourn relationships that seem bruised and battered.  We feel like we are living through something unprecedented, and in many ways we are.  But the country has been divided before, people have suffered greatly, and yet we have prevailed. 

In 1863 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote a poem, which later became a beloved Christmas carol.  We rarely sing the entire carol, but the first verse is familiar. 

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!

The rest of the poem takes on a different tone. Longfellow’s wife had died tragically in a fire two years earlier. The country was in the depths of the civil war, fighting with our fellow Americans, even in some cases brother fighting against brother. Longfellow’s older son had been seriously injured in the fall of 1863. Longfellow expresses the deep feeling of his own—and the country’s—grief and anguish. 

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!

But it does not end with that. Here are the last two verses:

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 doth He sleep;
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men.”

This is what Christ tells us in John 16:33. In this world we have distress, but Christ has conquered the world. We have peace in him. 

 

This season, when we hear bells and carols, we can be reminded that we have the peace of Christ, and that the world will revolve again from night to day.

 

Prayer:
God, it is hard to know your peace right now.  Help us to remember that no matter what is happening in the world, Christ has conquered it.  Let us know the peace that passes understanding.  Amen