“Then peeled the bells more loud and deep
God is not dead, nor does He sleep
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail
With peace on earth, good will to men.”
For some reason, this particular text of this particular song has hit me very hard in recent years. Around Christmastime, we can hear a lot about hope and how Christ came to save us from our sins. We look to the reason why he came - to die in a substitutionary atonement for our sins so that we could be reconciled to the Father. The Gospel tells us how ugly and despicable our sins truly are in light of a holy God and the beauty and the glory of eternity with Christ, when God Himself is our treasure. But to be honest, many of those concepts, while true, are built almost or solely on the foundations of faith waiting for the final day when our faith shall be sight. Who has seen God face to face, so as to truly see for themselves the stark hideousness of their sin in the light of His glory? Who has truly grasped the depth of His love that would inspire Him to come, much less die, in our place? I understand these truths in my heart, but it requires a daily reminder to keep the fires of faith alive so that I might be constantly looking for His return.
But everyday, without fail, and without my purposefully seeking it out, I’m barraged with reminders of how wrong this world is. News headlines, Facebook statuses, phone calls, and texts, all day long, violently exhibiting the effects of the sin which my heart knows to be a reality. So whenever a book or movie, song lyric or piece of art, looks toward the coming of Christ through the eyes of the wrong being made right, my heart instantly breaks in a way I don’t know how to describe. It’s as if despair and hope have reached their capacity simultaneously. A complete and total righting of all that is wrong in this world? Once and for all? That is something that I can’t fathom. It’s impossible.
But with God all things are possible.
Keep an eye to the sky. He’s promised us that one day, He will do it.
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail
With peace on earth, good will to men.