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In 1914, the world was at war, the first of two World Wars. It was a time that saw great death as mankind marched into the terrors of modern warfare.
Only 5 months into the conflict, right on the Western Front, where a great deal of the conflict was happening, December came and the boys were still fighting. Then something miraculous occurred. When Christmas came, the soldiers on the British side of the trench heard Christmas carols coming from the German side. Soon the British joined in with carols of their own.
If that weren’t enough, an informal truce was called by the soldiers, the footmen in this fight. Gifts were exchanged and the men even played football with each other, as the stories go. Peace spontaneous came in the midst of all this fighting and bloodshed.
Now one the carols sung by the Germans, as the story goes, was Silent Night, a continued favorite of the church and one which we will be singing this evening. It begins with the words “Silent night, holy night, all is calm, all is bright.”
It is interesting that this is one of the carols that the soldiers were said to sing in that truce. Things, up to that point, had not been silent or calm, and if bright, certainly not cheery. The boys participating in this truce knew it had to be a risk. Many who were there did not approve of what was occurring. The leaders behind both armies certainly weren’t happy.
There’s a sense in which these soldiers could understand all the better what was going on during the first Christmas, the Nativity of our Lord. That night wouldn’t have been quite so calm, if silent, either.
Jesus’ birth wouldn’t have been quite as idilic as “Silent Night” makes it out to be. This isn’t a moment when the world was watching and waiting with wonder. That time would come later.
First of all, no one really knew who Jesus was. Those who did were a select few the angels told. Last Sunday, we even saw some of the confusion Joseph would have had about this event. We also saw how being found pregnant by the Holy Spirit put Mary’s life in danger.
If it were not enough that Jesus’ life was in jeopardy before even coming into this world, Jesus’ birth itself wasn’t quite so grand. We are told by Luke that Jesus was placed in a manger, literally a feeding-trough for the animals, after His birth. This likely would be in a cave. Jesus was placed there, in a cave full of live animals, because there was no place for them in room, inn, lodging, wherever it was they were.
It is hard to imagine that giving birth in a feeding area for animals was calm, quiet, or peaceful. Yet this is how the Son of God came into this world. This is the event that shepherds, people living on the outskirts of society, would have been called to witness. This is the day of miracle and wonder that Mary can do nothing else but ponder in her heart.
We would do well to ponder these events too, for why would God want to come into this world in this way? Why come into a world with dust and dirt, with hunger and thirst, with people killing one another, with constant disease and pandemic? God didn’t have to endure any of this. He did so out of love, love for us.
When we celebrate the Nativity of our Lord, when we sing hymns like Silent Night, we should do so in the same spirit as the soldiers in the Christmas Truce. We know life from the beginning for God in this world wasn’t silent, or calm, or bright. We have our own experience to show us that. Yet God chose to come into this world anyways. That is the gift we are called to ponder and treasure in our hearts. God’s love is so great that He would endure everything you hate and more. God’s love is such that He would even die for us. The gift of that love is what we celebrate tonight. It is the gift we celebrate every single day in our life of Faith.