A Season of Peace

He was only 22, a young farm boy from Nebraska, and he had seen more death in his time than anyone ever should.    He was on the western front in a hell hole called France and the date was Dec. 24, 1914.  It did not seem like a time for miracles, a time for the coming of a Prince of Peace, a celebration of Christmas. It seemed as though the fighting, the war, would never end.  But on that Christmas Eve a miracle was coming.

Suddenly the Americans heard singing.  That’s right --- singing.  The Germans were singing “Silent Night”.  Slowly the Americans lowered their weapons. Slowly they began to add their own voices to that of their German counterparts until they formed a choir --- -truly an angel’s choir. 

“Silent Night, Holy night!  All is calm, all is bright.  Round yon virgin mother and child!  Holy infant so tender and mild.  Sleep in heavenly peace.  Sleep in heavenly peace!”

Amazingly --- and without authorization from their commanders --- infantrymen from both sides wandered out into that no man’s land to join together in a celebration of a peace. For at least a few hours, in the bleak winter’s night, there was no enemy.  There was only one heart reaching out to another heart.  All around the front, truces were being declared.

Now if this were a fairy tale instead of the truth, the story would end there. The war would have ended there.  But generals marshaled their troops together and declared the battle was not done.  In some places it was several days before the soldiers were willing to take up arms again, but eventually they did.

 The pull of darkness is  great.  Yet the dream, the longing, for a day of peace is still within our hearts and someday, somehow, we will find the way to walk in the pathways of the Lord. 

            This Christmas season, let us pray for peace where we can find no peace. Let us pray for peace in the Middle East: in Afghanistan, Syria, and Israel, Let us pray for peace for each soldier, each family, who is caught up in forces beyond their control, for all those who pay the terrible price ” of war.  Let us pray for peace in what is, after all, the season of peace, the coming of the very Prince of Peace, for “Blessed are the peacemakers. They will be called the children of God.