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Midnight


It came upon the midnight clear,
That glorious song of old,
From angels bending near the earth,
To touch their harps of gold:
"Peace on the earth, goodwill to men,
From heaven's all-gracious King."
The world in solemn stillness lay,
To hear the angels sing.

Still through the cloven skies they come,
With peaceful wings unfurled,
And still their heavenly music floats
O'er all the weary world;
Above its sad and lowly plains,
They bend on hovering wing,
And ever o'er its babe sounds
The blessèd angels sing.

Yet with the woes of sin and strife
The world has suffered long;
Beneath the angel-strain have rolled
Two thousand years of wrong;
And man, at war with man, hears not
The love-song which they bring;
O hush the noise, ye men of strife,
And hear the angels sing.

And ye, beneath life's crushing load,
Whose forms are bending low,
Who toil along the climbing way
With painful steps and slow,
Look now! for glad and golden hours
come swiftly on the wing.

O rest beside the weary road,
And hear the angels sing!
For lo!, the days are hastening on,
By prophet bards foretold,
When with the ever-circling years
Comes round the age of gold
 When peace shall over all the earth
Its ancient splendors fling,
And the whole world give back the song
Which now the angels sing.
          According to Wikipedia, this song was written as a poem in 1849 by a man troubled by all of the violence in the world. In other words, it’s quite like “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.” I hear the same depression in our society today. Friends are expressing their heart-felt, deep concerns about the state of the world, with good reason. One friend was bemoaning (justifiably) the world in which we live because she and a friend thought they were “in a safe place” and it turns out they weren’t. We can’t seem to get the lesson taught to us by The Walking Dead through our thick skulls. “There are no safe places.” Zombies and other predators can and will attack in the places we least expect them. 
          The problem is, their answer seems to be to wag their fingers at the world and say, “Straighten up and fly right!” They think that the world will be saved through their efforts. They change the last three verses to reflect what man can supposedly do for himself. They think that by saying “This is wrong” loudly and frequently enough, people will figure it out. The truth is that most of those who do those wrong things will either answer, “No, it’s not” or “I don’t care.” 
          This song doesn’t have the lyrics we so often want to sing. The world isn’t a safe place. It can’t be. It is only by looking at things from a heavenly perspective that there is any hope, or any peace in this world. The Holy Spirit can change the hearts and minds of the predators in this world. We cannot. That doesn’t mean that we stop saying “This is wrong.” It means that in this world, we will have tribulation, but Christ has overcome the world.

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