The Bells That Broke the Silence

On August 25, 1944, the great bell Emmanuel — thirteen tons of bronze hanging in the south tower of Notre-Dame — had been silent through four years of Nazi occupation. That afternoon, as General Leclerc's 2nd Armored Division rumbled through the streets of Paris, someone climbed the tower stairs and set the bell swinging. Its deep voice rolled across the rooftops, and within minutes every church bell in Paris answered. Shopkeepers abandoned their counters. Families who had drawn their curtains for years threw open their windows. Strangers wept in each other's arms on the Pont Neuf. The news did not need explaining. The sound alone was enough — liberation had come.

Isaiah saw this kind of moment centuries before it happened in Paris. He described watchmen on the walls of Jerusalem lifting their voices together when they spotted the messenger's dusty feet cresting the hill — feet carrying the news that exile was over, that the Almighty reigned, that comfort had come at last. "Break forth into joy, sing together," he cried, "for the Lord has redeemed Jerusalem."

Every Sunday, the church is that bell tower. We carry news just as urgent, just as liberating: God has not abandoned His people. The Holy One has bared His arm. Salvation is not a rumor — it has arrived.