A Peaceful Christmas
Dec 21, 2016 | by Brad Sumner
It was Christmas Eve 1914. World War I had broken out just five months earlier and by December, over 100,000 Allied and Axis soldiers were dug into trenches on the Western Front. In the midst of the deadly strife of the battle field, an unusual Christmas peace unfolded.
Captain Robert Patrick Miles wrote of it in a letter that was published posthumously in Britain’s Daily Mail:
“Friday (Christmas Day). We are having the most extraordinary Christmas Day imaginable. A sort of unarranged and quite unauthorized but perfectly understood and scrupulously observed truce exists between us and our friends in front. The funny thing is it only seems to exist in this part of the battle line – on our right and left we can all hear them firing away as cheerfully as ever. The thing started last night – a bitter cold night, with white frost – soon after dusk when the Germans started shouting 'Merry Christmas, Englishmen' to us. Of course our fellows shouted back and presently large numbers of both sides had left their trenches, unarmed, and met in the debatable, shot-riddled, no man's land between the lines. Here the agreement – all on their own – came to be made that we should not fire at each other until after midnight tonight. The men were all fraternizing.. and swapped cigarettes and lies in the utmost good fellowship. Not a shot was fired all night!”
A Christmas peace observed in the midst of conflict.
In 2016, our world can feel increasingly fragile. The nightly news and our social media feeds bombard us with images of human suffering that can leave us feeling numb and helpless. In our own lives, relationships can strain and fracture and death can steal away a sense of joy and peace. So there can be a sense of dissonance when we hear the declaration of the angels that first Christmas night of “peace on earth” (Luke 2:14). Yet this story reminds us that peace is yet possible in the midst of strife. Not just because of human effort but because of the coming of the Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6) that first Christmas night. Jesus came “to guide us to the path of peace.” (Luke 1:79) But just like those WWI soldiers, you have to choose not only to want to walk the sometimes dangerous path of peace, but also take the risk that because of who is on the journey with you, it just might be worth it.