Scott Bruun: Recalling Forward – Peace, Joy and Goodwill
Wednesday, December 24, 2014
Pioneer Square at Christmas time, via iStock
Hard to imagine, a century ago, endless fields of frozen mud. Hard to imagine a silly little war that started in August of that year with an assassin’s bullet. A war most believed would be over in six weeks, and yet by December 1914, had ground to a nightmarish stalemate.
Hard to imagine barbed wire strewn from Switzerland to the English Channel; and hundreds of miles of opposing trenches, dug by young men as their only protection from bullets and shrapnel. Trenches filled with dirty water, rats, lice, disease and decay.
And between those opposing trenches? No Man’s Land. A wasteland of frozen mud, mutilated landscape, and the steadily decaying corpses of enemy and countrymen, alike. None of us ever wants to see Hell. But Hell could not be too far from what those soldiers saw and lived in Flanders.
And yet, something remarkable happened one hundred years ago tonight, December 24th, 1914.
An impromptu truce begun in the Belgian woods, then spread up and down the Western Front. It took various forms, including make-shift soccer games in some instances. In others, simply a time of mutual reprieve to care for the wounded, and collect and bury the dead.
But it mostly went like this: A light snow had fallen the prior evening, and again on morning of Christmas Eve. The No Man’s Land of frozen gray mud would, for a brief time, be cleansed white.
Many of the German and Bavarian regiments had been issued small Christmas trees, Tannenbaum. And up and down the lines, as daylight faded over the quieting fresh snow, soldiers began placing those small trees, adorned with lit candles, on top of the parapets.
From both sides, as the guns of August rang silent on Christmas Eve, carols began to ring up from the trenches. Silent Night and Joy to the World sung in English. In German, Stille Nacht and Dies ist der Tag den Gott gemacht - This is the Day the Lord has made.
And while history is largely silent to what the French were singing that night, perhaps it had something to do with stockings. And probably not the kind you hang on the mantle.
Opposing troops called out to each other in salutation, and eventually a few brave souls from both sides ventured out of the trenches unarmed. They met in between, in No Man’s Land, where death was guaranteed only a few hours earlier. They spoke to each other as best they could, they laughed, they sang, and they smoked together.
The next day, Christmas Day, the truce continued, more confident. Soldiers met, played games, and exchanged gifts. Gifts of food and tobacco, exchanges of uniform buttons and insignia. The English gave candies and Plum Puddings; the Germans gave chocolate and even some beer. And a few exchanged names and addresses, with the vow to connect once the war ended.
In a war that would last four years and kill 16 million people, the question is, how could that truce have happened? Why was there peace on earth, a silent night and goodwill toward men that wartime Christmas, now a hundred years gone?
Now fast forward and ask why, despite the broken chaotic world we still live in, and despite the manic nature of this season, why do we all feel that larger desire for joy, peace and goodwill? Feel like we are built for it. Even dependent on it.
I don’t know, but maybe we overthink the question? Maybe we assume that today’s complexities somehow make the simpler answers from yesterday less relevant.
Because maybe it really is simple. Maybe it’s as simple as the reason our families will draw together tonight and tomorrow. Maybe it’s as simple and beautiful as that night of peace, in Flanders, a century ago.
Maybe it’s as simple and beautiful as that which terrified a group of poor shepherds centuries ago, then brought them to their knees in exaltation. Maybe it’s as simple as that Holy Night when an angel told those shepherds, “I bring you good news of great joy.”
This Christmas Eve, 2014, do we find ourselves embracing the gift of family, friends, peace and joy because of a Charlie Brown Christmas special? Or The Polar Express, inflatable Santas, Peacock Lane, or office holiday parties?
Or do we yearn for these gifts because a young girl gave birth in a stable under a star? A dusty little stable meant for animals, because there was no room at the inn. No room, in fact, in this world. And a star above, lighting upon the greatest gift humankind could ever receive.
Today, perhaps a little overwhelmed by the season, perhaps a little overwhelmed by the world, we might be forgiven for asking the same question that an obscure Roman governor asked some 33 years after that Holy Night: “Where are you from?”
“Not of this world” answered the accused, only hours before he would die. “For this reason I was born, and for this I have come into the world.”
Merry Christmas.
*Special thanks to Stanley Weintraub, for his book “Silent Night”; Joseph Ratzinger, for his book “Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives”; and Boris Johnson, for his book “The Churchill Factor”.
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