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Kindle the Lamps, Dispel the Darkness The Reverend Dr. Becky Edmiston-Lange, December 10, 2006 I find it impossible (and I imagine you do too) to hear the song Christmas in the Trenches without thinking about all the places in our world today where there is war. World Watch lists eighteen countries where there is currently “significant armed conflict.” Perhaps it is inevitable that I would think especially of our troops in Afghanistan and Iraq; of families who this Christmas season will be grieving the death of soldier sons and daughters, or welcoming home adult children injured in body or spirit. I think too of the Iraqi dead and the continuing suffering of the Iraqi people. Would that we could find a way to still the guns, to stop the strife, to find a way toward peace. The Christmas truce of 1914 has often been dismissed as though it were merely a fabrication, or if it did occur, as a minor incident. But enemy really did meet enemy between the trenches in No Man’s Land and on a far greater scale than generally realized. Not only Germans and British took part, but French and Belgians as well. By the winter of 1914, “The War to End All Wars” had reached a stalemate. Advancing armies, equipped with repeating rifles, machine guns and a huge array of artillery had already killed over 700,000 men on the western front. To protect against this vast firepower, the soldiers were ordered to dig in and prepare for next year’s offensives. A continuous line of trenches, 475 miles long, stretched from the North Sea to the border of neutral Switzerland. The soldiers, ill equipped to face the rigors of cold and rain, found themselves wallowing in a freezing mire of mud and decaying bodies. Both sides suffered the same miserable conditions and along the front the enemy was sometimes no more than fifty yards away. It was not unusual for opposing troops to come to tacit agreements not to fire at certain periods of the day—during morning breakfast, for example. And it was not usual for groups of men on either side to gather in the front trenches and hold impromptu concerts, singing patriotic and sentimental songs. The songs from one line floated over to the other and were often greeted with applause or cries of “encore.” But what happened at Christmas time 1914 far surpassed even these surprising civilities. As packages of goodies from home started to arrive on both sides, friendly banter echoed across No Man’s land. Many German soldiers had worked in Britain as waiters, cooks and cabbies and so spoke some English. December 24 dawned clear and bright. The British flying corps dropped a brandy-infused plum pudding onto a German airfield; the Germans reciprocated with a careful airdrop of rum. At one spot along the line, the Germans spirited a chocolate cake into the British trenches along with an invitation to a cease-fire to enjoy a holiday concert that evening. At other points, calls of “No shoot tonight, sing tonight” rang out. And then, at twilight, miniature tannenbaums decorated with candles, began to appear on the parapets of the German trenches, reminding the British troops of the Christmas trees of home and the men in the India corps of Diwali, the Hindu festival of light. That night, all up and down the line, music was heard—rounds and rounds of carols; a French harmonica player playing Silent Night; a German violinist playing Handel’s Largo. The famed tenor Victor Granier of the Paris Opera stunned the line to silence with his rendition of O Holy Night. Men began to climb out of the trenches, wander into No Man’s Land, shake hands and exchange gifts of food, drink and tobacco with men from the opposing side. The next day, soccer matches and bicycle races sprang up all along the lines. Again, gifts were exchanged and a busy trade in barter proceeded—German beer for plum pudding; sauerkraut for chocolate cake. Soldiers who had been barbers before the war gave free haircuts and shaves. Both sides took advantage of the truce to bury their dead, sometimes digging graves side by side. There were even incidences of joint services performed for both British and German dead. In one such rite, the chaplain of the 6th Gordon Highlanders and a German divinity student together conducted a service for nearly a hundred dead, soldiers from both sides lined up around them. The Chaplain read the 23rd psalm in English; the divinity student followed in German. The chaplain said a prayer, the student translated line by line. It must have been a strange and moving sight—these men, bitter enemies as they were, now with bare heads bowed in reverence, for the moment united in a ritual of homage for their fallen comrades. At the close of the service the Chaplain saluted the German Commander, who, in turn, shook hands with the chaplain and offered him a cigar as a memento of the truce. The Chaplain reciprocated by digging out of the lining of his cap his copy of the Soldiers Prayer and handing it to the German officer. Many officers took a relaxed view of the situation, but the truce was in no way officially sanctified. In fact, stern orders had been issued by the high command on both sides against fraternization with the enemy. The truce, though widespread, was truly spontaneous. And in some places it carried over until well into the middle of January. The 107th Saxon Infantry Regiment nearly mutinied when ordered to recommence the fighting. When officers threatened to shoot any soldier who disobeyed the order, firing resumed but it became apparent both sides were aiming to miss. One German infantryman recalled, “We spent that day and the next wasting ammunition trying to shoot the stars in the sky.” In some places, fresh troops, uncontaminated by the truce, had to be rushed to the line. The next year, the high command of both sides would take no such chances. In 1915, artillery bombardments were increased over the holiday period by day and trench raids were ordered by night. Scattered incidents of fraternization occurred, but they did not spread. The Christmas Truce of 1914 was a unique occurrence as, for hundreds of miles all up and down the western front, thousands of men and officers, amassed in that place for the purpose of killing one another, instead lowered their guns and reached across the divide of hate to extend the hand of goodwill and Christmas cheer. “And on earth peace and good will to all.” On the western front in 1914, that enduring message of Christmas—the hope for a world of harmony between all peoples—had the power to transcend the barriers of enmity and nation. The winter holiday season is upon us here at Emerson in all its many facets. Last week at the Hanging of the Greens we sang carols, lit an advent Wreathe and decorated our grounds with evergreens and poinsettias, reminding ourselves that the origins of many Christmas traditions lie in the ancient Great Mid-Winter festivals which predate Christianity. Today we kindle the Hanukkah menorah and remember the Maccabees and the legend of the oil. Tonight, at our annual Vespers service, the choir will sing Randall Bass’s Glad Tidings which retells the story of Jesus birth and we will all bask in the gentle glow of candlelight. A week from today, our children and youth will present their version of a Christmas pageant, with both wise men and women, all kinds of animals in the stable and a distinctly Unitarian Universalist message. And yet later this month, the Winter Solstice will be celebrated here with symbols and rituals that remind us that all human beings are children of the sun, all dependent on the earth and its rhythms. Our Unitarian Universalist faith tradition draws wisdom from many sources and we do celebrate a diversity of holidays at this season of the year. But beneath all of our disparate celebrations lies the hope that we might find in each a universal message, a message with the power to transcend the barriers that divide people from people. And so we celebrate Christmas—not because we believe Jesus was the Messiah sent to ransom humanity from sin—but because we honor Jesus as a great prophet and find profound meaning in this holiday with its message of divine love become incarnate. For we believe that all people are children of God and we too have hopes for a world of light and love. We believe that divine love knows no distinctions of class—that it is through ordinary human beings, born unto woman and man, that divine love comes into this world, that it is through human beings that the world will be redeemed from violence and hatred, from poverty and neglect. As the Christmas Truce of 1914 witnessed to the power of the Christmas message to transcend national divisions, we would find in the Christmas story an expression of a universal hope which has the power to transcend theological labels. And what of Hanukkah? We are not Jewish and yet we celebrate this Jewish Festival of Lights also, because we see in this holiday a message of dedication to liberty of conscience that transcends its historic specificity—a universal message of the imperative for justice from oppression for all peoples. We would celebrate Hanukkah no matter when it fell in the calendar, and indeed, I sometimes rue that Hanukkah comes at the same time of year as Christmas, because it can tend to be overshadowed. But I think that the confluence of Hanukkah with Christmas can serve to deepen our understanding of both holidays. A little historical background might be in order—and I am indebted to my colleague the Reverend Mark Belletini for this analysis. The original rabbinic prescriptions for the celebration of Hanukkah did not stress the armed revolt of the Maccabees. Oh, the rabbis agreed that it was wrong for the Greek King Antiochus to force the Jewish people to assimilate and to worship Greek gods. They agreed that the defilement of the temple and the destruction of Jewish culture was sufficiently tyrannical to arouse revolt. But the rabbis did not want to encourage violent solutions to problems. And so, the earliest Hanukkah celebrations, stressed instead the legend of the menorah and the oil that miraculously burned for eight days. And to underscore their point the rabbis ordained that the synagogue reading for the days of Hanukkah would be Zechariah’s great vision of the menorah of peace, concluding with the words, “Not by force of arms, not by power and might, but by thy spirit of peace.” Hanukkah and Christmas taken together can remind us that, while peace without freedom and justice is a hollow peace, freedom and justice, in turn, need peace in order to be sustained. And isn’t that also a message with universal implications that transcend specific theologies? And so we find in the legend of the oil that burned long beyond expectation a fitting metaphor for our enduring hope—the hope that one day all the world might know peace and justice. And we remember, also, that the Jewish child whose birth is celebrated at Christmas grew up to be a man who proclaimed a vision steeped in the language of the ancient Hebrew prophets, a vision of radical equality, of peace and justice for all people on earth. And what of the winter solstice? We recognize that many of our Christmas traditions come from ancient solstice celebrations when people of old lit bonfires to beckon the sun to return with its life giving warmth and brought evergreens inside to encourage the return of green growing things to the earth. We find in these symbols a universal recognition of the human need for light and warmth at a dark time of the year. But even more importantly, through our modern interpretation of these rites, we acknowledge our reliance upon an interdependent web of creation, affirm that all human beings are bound together as sisters and brothers of our one planet earth. Yes, as Unitarian Universalists, we celebrate a diversity of religious holidays at this time of year. And, admittedly, some elements of our winter season appeal more to some than to others. But let us not mistake the many faceted nature of our winter holiday season as simply a casual potpourri, or merely an accident of the calendar. Rather let us find in our inclusive embrace of these many traditions, a purposeful expression of our abiding affirmation that human beings do share commonalities across religions, cultures and nations and that human beings simply must find the ways to reach out to one another across barriers of enmity and misunderstanding. All human beings everywhere share a common fate. And beneath and beyond the particulars of these many winter holidays lies an expression of our universal humanity. Let our celebration of these many holidays thus join together in a sign of one great hope—hope for a world of love and justice, of light and peace for all humanity—hope for a planet transformed by our care. Prayer Can we pray together in that spirit? See that babe lying in a manger—that child is you and me and everyone—and you have the potential to bring light and hope to the world. Feel the sun swing in its orbit; stand in awe under the winter sky—you are a child of the universe, rocked in a holy night, cradled like all else that ever was and ever will be in an infinite web of stars. Watch the candles of the menorah flicker and gleam—it is you who must tend the flame, nurture the fire, day by day, so that the fullness of the light can grow. Remember the words of Zechariah. Hear that great vision of peace and justice calling to you? And not only the words of Zechariah but of Isaiah and Micah and Jesus and all the great prophets? You and I and everyone—we need all the ways we can find to beckon forth our best possibilities for the world’s future. And so let the many symbols and rituals of this season stir our hearts and minds and come to dwell in our souls. And let us give birth to a commitment to extend our hands, to reach out across the divide that separates people from people. Let us believe and live in the hope for the fulfillment of that glorious prophesy—that someday all the world will be made one; that someday the guns will cease, the strife be ended and peace will not be merely a temporary truce but an eternal way of life; that someday the earth itself will rejoice and all her peoples sing with gladness together. Let us believe in that hope; and let that be our prayer this holiday season and for days to come. Amen Sources Belletini, Mark. “The Discipline of Hanukkah.” Sermon, December 13, 1998 http://firstuucolumbus.org/sermons/mb19981213 Brown, Malcolm and Seaton, Shirley. Christmas Truce. New York: Hippocrene Books, 1984 Winter, Jay and Baggett, Blaine. The Great War and the Shaping of the 20th Century. New York: Penguin Books, 1996 Weintraub, Stanley. Silent Night: The Story of the World War I Christmas Truce. New York: The Free Press, 2001 |
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