Shalom

Along the Western Front in Belgium, it was a dark and bitterly cold night — Christmas Eve, 1914. Soldiers had already seen far too much blood. They were deeply traumatized, aching for their families. The distance between what they believed the war would be and what it had become felt like a gaping chasm.

Then, out of the darkness, a single voice began to sing what was on his heart.

A soldier whispered the words of Silent Night. The hymn carried him home in his mind, if only for a moment. Gradually, others quietly joined the melody, and soon, across the frozen ground, more voices answered back. Not in German, but in English. British soldiers from the enemy trenches echoed the same song.

Silent night, holy night,
All is calm, all is bright.

The familiar melody carried a single message: of a lonely night in Bethlehem, when a small child was born in humble means into a world that was also deeply broken.

The guns fell silent.

On Christmas morning, a German soldier called across the trench in broken English, “You no shoot, we no shoot!” Men climbed out of their trenches, abandoned their posts, and for a brief and fragile moment, celebrated peace in a place where peace did not belong.

They shook hands, exchanged small gifts of cigarettes and alcohol, and a few even played a game of soccer.

Scottish soldier Joseph Lee later wrote of that experience:

When first I saw you in the curious street,
Like some platoon of soldier ghosts in grey,
My mad impulse was all to smite and slay,
To spit upon you – tread you ’neath my feet.
But when I saw how each sad soul did greet
My gaze with no sign of defiant frown,
(…)
I knew that we had suffered each as other,
And could have grasped your hand and cried, “My brother!”

Shalom

Not the absence of conflict, but the presence of wholeness in a place that should have known only hatred. For a few holy hours, the trenches of Belgium became a refuge of peace. The light of that Silent Night broke through the darkness.

After that Christmas did they hesitate, even for a moment, before pulling the trigger again? Did they wonder whether the soldier in their sights missed his family? Did they hate a little less after looking into the eyes of a man they now knew had a soul — just as they themselves did?

So sit for a moment with that child in the humble stable in Bethlehem. Observe His perfect peace. Many of us carry different goals, fears, and priorities, and they so easily become sources of division and strife. But Christmas invites us to lay down our arms.

Because:

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given… and his name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
— Isaiah 9:6