12-25 and 27-21<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Christmas<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s your fault!\u201d \u201cNo! It\u2019s your fault!\u201d \u201cYou started it!\u201d \u201cNo, you did!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We hear exchanges like these yelled back and forth in the schoolyard, or playgrounds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Or in diplomatic debates. In politics. On cable news. Or on bloody battlefields.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Humankind seems not to have \u201cadvanced\u201d much through the centuries; and neither with children nor adults. We congratulate each other, and fool ourselves, that \u201cprogress\u201d is the hallmark of our times. Yet the bloodiest death toll from wars, in any century of the earth\u2019s existence, was in the Twentieth Century; and more than in all previous centuries combined. We brag that we \u2013 \u201ccivilizations\u201d \u2013 have finally ended the scourge of slavery; yet there are greater numbers of slaves today than ever in human history. The numbers now are not the faces that flash in our minds, bondservants; but all manner of children, women, minorities, homeless, voiceless, migrants, the anonymous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As long as there are power elites; as long as greed outpaces love; as long as hypocrisy can always find a nicer name, humankind will be (in the Bible\u2019s phrase, Proverbs 26:11; II Peter 2:22) like dogs returning to their vomit. Think about what changes have occurred, really, when science develops new ways to save lives\u2026 as it also invents new ways to end lives. What a spectacle, when people march to save baby seals and whales, and march for the right to kill babies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Well, Merry Christmas, anyway. Let the holiday sing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Is society\u2019s spoken wish of the season an empty phrase? Or is there a spark of hope when we manage to pause at Christ\u2019s Mass, to think, or sing, or worship around the meaning of that word Incarnation? That concept \u2013 Emmanuel; God With Us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Once in our latter days it was manifested; only briefly, in a unique setting; and it is largely forgotten by history. Not many people know about the Christmas Truce. It was a virtual miracle during the first Christmas of the \u201cGreat War,\u201d World War I, surely the most useless of history\u2019s many useless wars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A few months after war was declared in Europe, by almost every big and small nation, almost a million soldiers had already been slaughtered. Christmastime was come, and soldiers were mired in trenches that were to become so established that for more than two years the battle line never moved more than 30 miles one way or another. In that unlikely hellhole a miracle did occur.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Minor details differ but the dispositive facts are acknowledged: Peace broke out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Soldiers of Germany, England (Scotland, actually), and France, at night, spontaneously sang Christmas carols\u2026 and were joined by \u201cenemies\u201d who could hear across No Man\u2019s Land\u2026 nervous soldiers climbed from trenches to greet their foes, and shake hands\u2026 gifts were exchanged, even little trinkets, but also pastries and wine sent from home. They shared pictures of wives and children\u2026 more hymn singing\u2026 fireworks, intended to illuminate battlefields so to aim the cannons, were now shot skyward in celebration. There were tentative, but successful, attempts to communicate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Of course they communicated. The languages that night were hymns and Bibles and chocolates and cigars. Handshakes and smiles and tears.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A Merry Christmas. A Holy Christmas. Peace on earth\u2026 at least in that narrow 27-mile-long battle line, south of Ypres and east of Armentieres, site of the song about les Mademoiselles<\/em>, that night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A British soldier recalled the Christmas Truce almost two decades later: We stuck up a board with a Merry Christmas on it. The enemy had stuck up a similar one. \u2026 Two of our men then threw their equipment off and jumped on the parapet with their hands above their heads. Two of the Germans done the same and commenced to walk up the river bank, our two men going to meet them. They met and shook hands and then we all got out of the trench.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n We and the Germans met in the middle of No Man\u2019s Land. Their officers were also now out. Our officers exchanged greetings with them.\u2026 One of their men, speaking in English, mentioned that he had worked in Brighton for some years and that he was fed up to the neck with this damned war and would be glad when it was all over. We told him that he wasn\u2019t the only one that was fed up with it<\/em>. (Frank Richards, \u201cOld Soldiers Never Die,\u201d 1933)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Another history records: [The British] Brigadier General G.T. Forrestier-Walker issued a directive forbidding fraternization: \u201cFor it discourages initiative in commanders, and destroys offensive spirit in all ranks. \u2026 Friendly intercourse with the enemy, unofficial armistices and exchange of tobacco and other comforts, however tempting and occasionally amusing they may be, are absolutely prohibited.\u201d<\/em> (Stanley Weintraub, \u201cSilent Night: The Story of the World War I Christmas Truce,\u201d 2001)<\/p>\n\n\n\n How much different would the next day have been \u2013 how much different would the world be today<\/em> \u2013 if the Truce had held?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Note that chocolates and cigars were only the presents<\/em>. The GIFTS<\/em> were hymns and Bible verses \u2013 they<\/em> brought the soldiers out of trenches; not the prospect of snacks or smokes or a soccer game in the snow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Christmas. God did not intend for Jesus\u2019s Incarnation, the spirit of that Christmas Truce, to be a one-time miracle, but to be everyday life<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He intended that we know-and-show that love and fellowship can be normal, not rare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We can be changed by the Holy Day, not be annoyed by yet another holiday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou started it!\u201d \u201cNo, you did!!!\u201d Wouldn\u2019t it be great if we all exchanged those words happily, about starting love, sharing affection, and living in Heavenly Peace?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Who \u201cstarted it\u201d? God did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n