12-23-24

One glance around the world in which we live can quickly give one the impression

that these are not stable times…..in the last four years we’ve seen the outbreak of

conventional warfare in Ukraine the likes of which have not been seen in Europe

since WWII……the Middle East is less stable with the attacks on Israel by Hamas,

Hezbollah and the nation of Iran…..Israel in turn has been leveling whole swaths

of the Gaza strip and emasculating Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syria…..the southern

border of the US is a mess…..China is sending spy balloons over our skies…..the

Canadian government is in upheaval…… It’s a fair statement to say that the

Biblical reference of “wars and rumors of wars” is apropos…… At every turn the

media is filled with headlines and punditry that lead off with terms like:

“Backlash”, “anger”, “harsh response”. One side accuses the other. Unrest occurs.

Civil discourse is lost.

And then….. Christmas…..Christmas, who’s true meaning is to welcome and

celebrate the Prince of Peace…..peace not as the world gives us….for in this world

we will have trouble, but fear not for He has overcome the world…..I’m not

talking about peace on earth, I’m talking about peace in us, the peace that

surpasses all understanding…..the kind of peace you can have when nothing in

the world around you looks like you should have peace……

There is something absolutely different about the season of Christmas…. I am fully

aware that not everyone believes as I do that this season we are in is the time

stamp of the birth of a savior through divine intervention….. Even if you set aside

faith, and just look at Jesus as a historical figure alone, you would still have to take

note that no one has changed history more than Him…..no one life has impacted

more lives than the life of a small child born in a manger……But yet, even the

hardest among us are aware that something different fills the air during this

season of hope. We see it in the giving of gifts, the gathering of families, the time

off from school and work….. We see it in the stories of extra sacrifice and hard

work to buy that one small gift for a child….. It is evident in the wreaths on doors

and lights on trees….. Say what you will, but Christmas is different.

To be sure, there are those who don’t celebrate…. For reasons of faith or no faith,

Christmas is not everyone’s time of celebration. Families can find it a time of

poignancy marked by the loss of a loved one, or an absence at the table for a

servicemember overseas….. But underlying the story of Christmas is a hope that

things can be different. …..That even in the lowest of times and darkest of

moments that a star can light a new way forward……that peace can break out in a

time of unrest……

Christmas has a way of changing things…… As surely as the history and faith of the

world changed in a lowly Bethlehem manger over two thousand years ago there

are still moments in time today that cannot be explained except to say the spirit

of Christmas overcame the worst of circumstances…..peace broke out when it

made no sense to have peace……

We could look to Washington’s crossing of the Delaware at Christmas in 1776. A

moment that led to victory that spawned other victories. A miracle in the midst of

hardship that brought us to the birth of this nation. Books have been written

about moments of faith in times of crisis in which answers came from seemingly

nowhere during the Christmas season. Is it just sentiment?

No, there’s something decidedly different about the Christmas season. Something

that brings together what was once apart. Something that extends a hope that

tides will turn……when peace descends like a blanket to cover the cold of

discord…..

Like the miracle of the battlefield peace that broke out in the trenches of WWI.

The Christmas Armistice of 1914……Just weeks before that Christmas Pope

Benedict had called for a temporary cease fire on the lines, asking, “that the guns

may fall silent at least upon the night the angels sang.”….. But war is where men

die and things are broken…… Officially, the Pope’s plea for peace on the

battlefields of Europe in 1914 was rejected by leadership of both sides.

It is said that the misery of trench warfare in the first war to end all wars was on a

scale unapparelled in world history…… On the night of Christmas Eve, 1914, in the

mud and slog of the trenches in Belgium the 1 st Battalion of the Royal

Warwickshire Regiment was dug in and they were utterly miserable. The trenches

were cold, dank, and fearful…… The men of the regiment had been on the line for

endless days and sleepless nights…… A British machine gunner named Bruce

Bairnsfather later wrote that as he huddled in his freezing narrow trench, covered

in mud, that he began to hear singing……singing?....that made no sense……no one

sings like that in war…..

He called out to one of his fellow soldiers asking if he could hear it too…... German

soldiers were across no mans land in their own trenches singing Christmas

carols…….. There in the darkness some of the British soldiers began singing

back….. Then a voice with a thick German accent called out across the span

between the lines saying “come over here!” …….This was not normal. This did not

fit the moment. After the call was repeated one British sergeant yelled back, “you

come half way. I come half way.”…….

What happened next is recorded in soldier’s diaries, letters home, and dispatches

from the front. One man is said to have climbed from his trench and walked out

into the void to meet the Germans. A short time later he returned smoking a new

cigar and smiling at the astonished men of his unit. And then all across the lines,

running the length of the Western Front, groups of French, Belgian, British and

German soldiers declared cease fires and crawled up out of their fortifications to

meet in the middle and celebrate Christmas…..for just a little while peace broke

out at Christmas in the trench lines……

It is said that the soldiers who had just been fighting and dying began to shake

hands, sing together, swap cigarettes and cigars, pour the occasional libation, and

in more than one instance impromptu soccer games broke out…… Western

soldiers gave German soldiers haircuts……. Men of both sides helped their

enemies retrieve the dead who littered the battlefield.

British soldier J. Reading wrote home and told his family, “I shook hands with

some of them, and they gave us cigarettes and cigars. We did not fire that day,

and everything was so quiet it seemed like a dream.”…… A German Lieutenant

wrote, “How marvelously wonderful, yet how strange it was….Christmas” he said,

“the celebration of love, managed to bring mortal enemies together as friends for

a time.”

It is not clear how many troops participated in the Christmas truce of 1914…..

Time Magazine wrote that up to 100,000 men crossed the lines to celebrate with

their enemies……. High commands on both sides were said to have been shocked

and disapproved of it all……But it was Christmas. Something was different. Peace

that surpassed all understanding had take a foothold…..it was a battlefield time

like no other…..

A memorial was erected in England’s National Memorial Arboretum that

commemorates the Christmas truce. Cast in bronze the plaque at the memorial

depicts two uniformed arms reaching out and shaking hands……ten years ago this

month, In 2014, on the 100 th anniversary of what has become known as the

Christmas Armistice, the English and German national teams played a match in

remembrance of the men who kicked a ball together in no mans land.

It is said that as the day drew to a close that a German soldier said to one rifleman

of the British 3 rd Rifle Brigade, “Today we have peace. Tomorrow you fight for

your country. I fight for mine. Good luck.”

Christmas is different…….. It doesn’t mean that problems go away per se. But this

season that we are in is one that extends hope in hopeless times. …..I feel good

about where we are headed in 2025…..but I also know that the road will not

always be easy…..but I know in the depths of my very soul that the God of peace

will be with you if you let Him……

So my friends,……May God richly bless you with the hope of this season no matter

your circumstance…..may peace break out in your life……

Merry Christmas from all of us here at Rightside Media…….

And that’s a wrap for the Rightside Way