One of my favorite Christmas songs is, “I heard the bells on Christmas Day.” By Casting Crowns is my favorite version.
If you’re one of those people like my husband who says no Christmas music or Decorations until after Thanksgiving I say “Bah humbug.”
Seriously though I was just listening to this song and at the end, there was a little bit of history into its background. I thought I would share.
This song was actually a poem by poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow about the contrast between the message of peace on earth and the horrors of war.
The poem is set on Christmas Day during the American Civil War. The narrator hears the bells ringing but is also aware of the violence and injustice happening around him.
The message behind this song is that peace on earth will prevail, despite the horrors of war. The poem’s final lines declare that “God is not dead, not does He sleep” and that “peace on earth, good will toward man” will come to be.
Longfellow wrote this poem in response to his son, Charles Appleton Wadsworth when he received a near-fatal wound, during the Mine Run campaign in Virginia.
This poem was first published in February 1865.
Just a little bit of history, to a much-loved Christmas song.
Learning this I will never see this song the same way again.
From Pity to Praise 