Symbols of the Season: Bell
In that day “HOLINESS TO THE LORD” shall be engraved on the bells of the horses.
Zechariah 14:20
Recommended Reading: 1 Chronicles 13:5-8
The great nineteenth-century American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow endured dark days prior to 1863. His first wife died during a miscarriage, and his second wife died in an accidental fire. And his oldest son joined the Union army to fight in the Civil War without Longfellow’s blessing. But on Christmas Day 1863, the poet composed “Christmas Bells,” a poem eventually turned into the popular Christmas song “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.”
The darkness of his experiences and the Civil War caused him to despair that there would be no “peace on earth, good-will to men.” But the Christmas bells he heard lifted his spirits, causing him to conclude the poem this way: “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.’” From biblical days until today, bells and cymbals have been rung to proclaim the joy of heaven and peace on earth at Christmas.
If you hear bells this Christmas season, be reminded of the joy of knowing God, now and forever.
Joy is the serious business of heaven.
C.S. Lewis
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