For those of you who are history buffs, you will remember that World War I started shortly after Archduke Ferdinand of the Austro-Hungarian Empire was assassinated in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914. Before the fighting ended in 1918, 15 million people had died and another 22 million were wounded on the battlefields of Europe.
In November 2005, the one of the last living veteran of that war named Alfred Anderson died. I believe there are about 3 living veterans of WWI. Like them, Alfred Anderson’s life spanned parts of three different centuries. Alfred was born in 1896 in Scotland and passed away at the age of 109 in a nursing home. The longevity of Alfred’s life is one thing but there was an experience that Alfred had during the war that was nothing less than a miracle of sorts.
When WWI began, Alfred was sent to the Western Front as part of Scotland’s famed Black Watch Regiment. He experiences the horrors of trench warfare and was wounded in 1916. But the thing that is worth sharing is the experience that Alfred had on Christmas Eve in 1914. It is a story that may be familiar to you.
During the evening before Christmas and under the safety of darkness, German and British troops, which were entrenched across from each other, began hanging candles and other Christmas ornaments on whatever trees that were still standing in that area. Around midnight, the British troops reported hearing a familiar tune drifting over the shell-pocked landscape although it was in German “Silent Night, Holy Night, All is calm, all is bright….” The British troops then responded by singing carols back to the Germans. Then, on Christmas morning, with the first light of day, the two sides emerged from their trenches and met in the middle of No Man’s Land. They exchanged small gifts: whiskey, cigars and other soldier’s comforts. They also buried the bodies of soldiers which were scattered around the area and each side read Psalm 23 in their own language to honor those who had died. There was even an impromptu soccer match. The Germans beat the British 3-2.
Alfred Anderson, was the last living witness of what we now call the “Christmas Truce of WW I” Prior to his death, he said, “I remember the silence, the eerie sound of silence. All I’d heard for two months in the trenches was the hissing, cracking and whining of bullets in flight, machine gun fire and distant German voices. There was dead silence that morning, right across the land as far as you could see. We shouted Merry Christmas to each other although no one felt merry. The silence ended early in the afternoon when we returned to our trenches and began fighting again. It was a short peace in a terrible war.”
Isaiah’s prophecy in today’s first reading, looks forward to a child who will be called “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” This child will show us the way to peace for, as Isaiah writes, “the government shall be upon his shoulders.” Isaiah foresees a time when “every boot and cloak stained in blood will be burned as fuel for the fire.”
For Christians, this prophecy is fulfilled in the birth of Jesus. It is a newborn and vulnerable baby, living in the midst of violent times, who is the source of God’s peace and our peace. It is this child, who as an adult, will be victimized by terrible violence. But it is this adult, vulnerable on the cross, who will establish a truce between God and the human family. Through the suffering and death of Christ, peace is established between heaven and earth and a new kingdom—a kingdom of peace—is on the way.
Ironically, the birth of Jesus, who is God’s gift of peace and reconciliation to us, was not necessarily a peace-filled event itself. In our creative imaginations, we sanitize it so that it makes for nice Christmas cards and movies. But, in reality, it was a rather dark and violent story.
A husband and his pregnant wife are forced to go to another city by decree of the Roman Emperor who is demanding a census. No one opens their door to these immigrants who must give birth amid the smell and dung of animals. Yes, shepherds and wise men pay their respects but so does a power-hungry dictator whose fear and jealousy drive him to kill the infants in that area. Then, this family is forced to become refugees, going to Egypt, forced to flee because of their religious identity. Re-imagining what this scene must have been like, we might ask, “What is there to celebrate in this darkness? In this violence?”
Well, what we celebrate is that, even in the darkness, there is a light. Even in the violence, there is a peace. Even in the misery, there is hope. This is the promise of Christmas. God has visited our dark and violent world and has made a home with us. God pitched a tent in the midst of the battlefield and became the one who established a truce by his own sacrifice.
As a result of this great light and peace and hope that is Christ, we understand that God is with us throughout it all. God is with us in illness, poverty, homelessness, repression, war. God is there even in the middle of the night when someone is grieving, doubting, fearful or confused. God is in all things. God’s light is not extinguished even in the darkest places. God’s peace is not shattered even in the most violent places. God’s hope is not lost even in the most hopeless situations. This is what we have been promised in the birth of the Christ child.
This is the Good News for us even today. In a world that keeps surprising us with new darknesses., there is still a light that continues to shine.
That Good News could not be more relevant than to the Christians of Bethlehem during this time of the year. There are about 25,000 Palestinian Christians living in the birthplace of Jesus. But, that number is decreasing rapidly. Bethlehem today is, what one writer calls, “a poster child for division, barricaded behind a 27-foot high wall. Jesus’ birthplace is a prison where Palestinian Christians are not allowed outside the wall. Christian peacemakers have commented that even Mary and Joseph would not be able to enter Bethlehem today and many Palestinian mothers are forced to give birth in cars or fields because they are prevented by the wall from getting proper medical care. Some Christians have put a wall around their Nativity Scenes as a sign of protest.
The plight of Christians and non-Christians in the birthplace of Jesus might cause us to believe that not much seems to change over the centuries. Darkness is still darkness. Even in the Holy Land. But that is the place that was to see the first glimmer of light.
The light still emanating from the birth of Christ in Bethlehem is what Alfred Anderson experienced in the trenches of WWI that Christmas Day. The Christmas Truce of 1914 lasted only a few hours, but it served as a glimmer of hope, a sign of Christ’s presence in that dark and violent place.
As we gather to celebrate the birth of the child we call the Prince of Peace, let us remember that he is truly the light of the world. No matter how deep the darkness may be at times, there is a light and that light is the Son of God shining on all of us this evening.