Advent is the season of waiting.  Ultimately, we are waiting for things to be made right.  The world has seen so much violence, pain, and suffering, so much hatred in the name of ideology.  Each new outrageous act of violence triggers a swarm of angry slogans and political opponents pointing fingers.  In the midst of this same turmoil, the gift of God’s peace came in the form of a helpless newborn.  In the midst of this same violence, the Christ child fled to Africa to escape harm.  In the midst of this same ideological zealotry, the Messiah chose the way of cross and resurrection over silencing one’s enemies by the sword.

The popular Christmas carol “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” was originally the poem Christmas Bells by American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.  During the Civil War, Longfellow’s son signed up to fight for the Union army and was seriously wounded in battle.  Still grieving from the loss of his beloved wife in a fire, Longfellow could not bear to face the otherwise joyous season of Christmas with the possibility of losing his son as well.  His poem has resonated with me since I was a young teenager.  I have always struggled with joy during Advent because it seems like peace is so hard to truly find on this planet.  So many people experience despair and sadness at Christmas time.  I believe that despair is a marker that we are longing for what was promised to us at that first Christmas…a time when peace on earth and goodwill towards all humanity is finally realized.  Though Longfellow was Unitarian, I see a lot in common with Wesleyan theology in this poem, a hope in the coming reign of Christ, and the call to all Christians to name the darkness, speak out against injustice and violent ‘solutions,’ and claim hope in God’s power to overcome.

I chose to have Richard Allen and Absalom Jones, the founders of the AME denomination, to be the bell ringers for this comic.  I don’t know if Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, SC has bells or not, but that congregation has really demonstrated to me what the church is supposed to look like when it is faced with evil.

Here is the comic I did earlier this year featuring these founders after the Charleston shooting.