Christmas Past, Christmas Present, Christmas Future

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!” 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote those words in his poem, “Christmas Bells” in 1863. Though he was tempted to despair, the pealing of the Christmas bells was a reminder to the poet that right would prevail. They were a reminder of the birth of a Savior who gave His life to reconcile the world to God.  

The same hatred and evil prowls the earth today that grieved Longfellow in the wreckage of the Civil War. It is easy, this Christmas present, to give in to despair over the state of a world still full of conflict, a world in which hate is strong. But just as with the Christmas bells of long ago, today there are reminders that God is at work in the world and that “wrong” – so prevalent and so perverse — ultimately shall fail. 

Here’s strong hatred from a Christmas recently past:
December 25, 2008, as we enjoyed festivities with our families and friends, the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) went on attack in Northeastern Congo, killing hundreds of believers, burning down churches, and abducting over 160 children.

Over 200 died on December 25^th, and hundreds more in the following weeks. Survivors reported that in one location, the LRA fighters ate the Christmas dinner that the villagers had prepared, with their victims’ corpses all around them. The abducted children would become the next troops or officers’ “brides” in the LRA.  

This present December, the young staff and friends of The Resolve, a DC-based advocacy organization seeking an end to the LRA’s reign of terror, determined that the victims of the DR Congo Christmas Massacres would be remembered and honored this Christmas season. From December 14-24, The Resolve called on people to pause from their busy Christmas present to remember the men, women, and children killed in the Christmas Massacres, to pray that the future will be different, and to renew a commitment to seeing peace come to this conflict-ridden region of Africa.  

The Resolve held its own vigil in front of The White House on December 14. On their website, they wrote of the vigil, “We were humbled by the people who came to join us – in the freezing cold – for our vigil to remember the lives lost in the LRA Christmas massacres. It was a powerful time of honoring those who lost their lives and the memories of all who have been affected by LRA violence.” Each participant took the name of a person who had been killed or abducted. They write, “The process of connecting with one name and the life it represented was a sobering reminder of the reality people in these communities continue to face.” 

Now The Resolve is chronicling the vigils that are taking place across the world. So far, vigils have been held in such places as San Diego, Cleveland, Phoenix, Chattanooga, Hartford, and Gainesville, as well as in Brisbane, Australia, Maharashtra, India, and in the Democratic Republic of the Congo itself. The Resolve co-founder and Executive Director, Michael Poffenberger, reflected, “There are no museums for the victims of the LRA’s Christmas Massacres. There are no monuments that have been built. Being here tonight is an act to say with our own bodies and our own voices that we can be those monuments.” 

Being there that night with their own bodies and their own voices, I say that the young activists of The Resolve are like Longfellow’s Christmas bells. They are evidence that God is at work in the world, that whether or not all of them know it themselves (!) God has put this passion and heartbreak – His passion and heartbreak within them. Wrong shall fail, and right shall prevail. And that is why I can have hope for Christmas future.