Day Seventeen: Christmas in the Trenches.

Day Seventeen: Christmas in the Trenches

Isaiah 2:4 "He shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more."

It happened in France, 1914; that first Christmas amidst the trenches of World War I. The peace was spontaneous; men simply refused to kill. For a moment Love shone bright like a Christmas star. The hymn "Stille Nacht" rose and was carried on a gentle breeze through a silent night across no-mans-land, men left their trenches, they met face to face and they shared life with each other. That Christmas they lived and they let live because something created in them pushed forward, spoke truth and gave them the courage to stop and allow peace to unite them in Christmas as brothers. (Christmas in the Trenches and THIS)

As a kid I would visit an old man; a neighbour. Ed Marshal was a veteran of WWI; he taught me my first drum rudiments. His voice was weak and raspy. He was bed ridden - lungs a victim of war and cigarettes, eyes blind "because they had seen too much." He and I would bang out my rudiments on a metal tray laid across his bed. He would tell his war stories to my wide-eyed-wonder: how they'd crossed the waste land as their comrades fell victim to bullets, shrapnel and poisonous gas; how he'd scrambled up mud embankments to shoot down into the enemy trenches. Except, he would say from time to time, they were not really enemies. "We got to know the Germans, we could hear them. The trenches were so close at points and the walls so thin we could speak with them." He'd show me his war medals; he'd let me hold them. From time to time he'd say something like "you learn a bit about yourselves too." I imagine war does that. Dark nights feeling insignificant, lonely and expendable standing watch up to your knees in mud, any movement could be an attack that would bring your death. "We knew death" - he said the corpses could lay for days in "no-mans-land" and they'd smell those smells of death mixed with the lingering smell of the mustard gas and gun powder that killed them. The threat of death hung close by constantly. Surely life was made for something else? Ed was not part of the Christmas truce, but I think he explained it well. In his coughing raspy voice he said: "we're not made for death son, we're made for life". (One last thing to watch)

If God is Love and God is infinite and God is eternal then Love is everything, it always was, it is and it always will be. Love then is not made - it simply "is" - it saturates and permeates creation. Love is our natural state. God created us because He is Love and He created us in the abundant overflow of His Love. We were created to live forever because we were created to be Loved forever. We are not made for death.

Just as certainly as "high command" on both sides of the Christmas truce responded with accusations of treason and threats of summary executions; just as certainly as they ordered extra attacks, extra fierce bombardments and extra killing to eradicate the memories of brotherly love, sharing and peace, our modern world responds in its vain attempt to eradicate God's Love. Our accusations are shrouded in pluralism, our threats in humanism, our bombardments in commercialism and our killings are the ultimate deaths brought on by secular ideologies. Just as certainly as we crucified the ultimate Gift of Love some 2000 years ago our world still seeks to eradicate God's Love. But just as certainly as Christ rose from the grave confirming and proclaiming God's undying Love for us, God's Love remains and is confirmed and proclaimed as we seek  Jesus.

The hymn "Stille Nacht" will rise from our buildings and homes this Christmas Eve; the song will be carried out on the breezes of that silent night and into the no-mans-land of our post-Christian world. The question posed for us on this and every Christmas Eve until the end of the age is will we rise up out of our trenches in Christ's peace, meet our fellows face to face and share courageously the truth, the life and the Love that can only be found in the Christ of Christmas.

Revelation 21:3-4 “See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his people, and God himself will be with them; He will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away."