While Christmas lights and festive decorations adorn homes, shops and streets, despite these warm displays, there is an underlying tension. We are a nation divided.
Yet, Christmas is a time of miracles. Could one happen now?
Intentional rhetoric has been released by the media to create division. It has occurred in both the natural and spirit realms intending to divide families, churches, businesses, and even countries.
This has increased, especially after the election, with countless messages instructing people whose candidate didn’t get elected, to avoid Thanksgiving and Christmas celebrations with family who hold opposing views and “choose a new family.”
Then there have been messages from political leaders and media hosts who have stoked fear that our freedoms will be lost and democracy destroyed due to the outcome of this past election. These messages have one goal–to instill fear, hate and division.
Dr. Martin Luther King once said, “Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.” But Christmas opens the door, as no other time of year, for a miracle of love to be released.
THE christmas miracle that overcame hate.
Forgiveness, hope and love can emerge in the most unexpected places and ways because of shared values and holidays.
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In a story almost forgotten in history, on Christmas Eve 1914 during World War I, British soldiers in their trenches heard German soldiers, hunkered down in their trenches, singing Christmas carols. They reported that a few small Christmas trees with candles could be seen standing along the edges of those dugouts.
The German soldiers sitting in the dark, cold and wet trenches, had mustered the Christmas spirit to sing.
Only a few hundred feet separated the two groups and the British soldiers heard it.
It was said that the two sides would often exchange taunts and challenges from the trenches, but on that night, one account of the event was that a German soldier threw out a challenge, “You no shoot, we no shoot.”[i]
An unlikely truce unfolded.
Men from both sides cautiously emerged from their trenches to meet in the middle referred to as “no man’s land.”
One British soldier, a rifleman named J. Reading recalled, “Later on in the day they came towards us. And our chaps went out to meet them…I shook hands with some of them, and they gave us cigarettes and cigars.
We did not fire that day, and everything was so quiet it seemed like a dream.”
A soccer ball was thrown out from the British side and free-for-all game ensued as men in mortal combat with each other just the day before, joined together in a game of soccer.
Another British soldier, named John Ferguson, recalled it this way: “Here we were laughing and chatting to men whom only a few hours before we were trying to kill!”[ii]
What brought about the truce?
The commonality of Christmas. A desire for peace—and for some, the meaning of Christ shared in that holiday—peace on Earth and goodwill to all men.
But the truce wasn’t welcomed by all.
As news of the interaction emerged, some leaders of the war were angered. How could there be war when the troops were fraternizing?
How could they hate and then kill each other if they were actually talking? And worse, what if they realized that the other side was human and not the monsters they had been painted to be?
In another account, one German scolded his fellow soldiers during the Christmas truce: “Such a thing should not happen in wartime. Have you no German sense of honor left?”
That 25-year-old soldier’s name was Adolf Hitler.[iii]
The day-and-a-half truce was a Christmas miracle. A calm in the middle of war between those pitted against each other as enemies. Yet, at their core, they were all human beings. Most just wanted peace and to return to their families.
However, those shrouded in hate, who allowed it to penetrate their heart–like Hitler–made decisions from that place of hate and division.
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Hate stokes division, which then creates justification that killing or evil against someone with whom they disagree, is a righteous act. That is called deception.
Hitler became consumed with it.
Twenty-five years later when he rose to power, overwhelming hate had already taken over his heart and mind. The result was the murder/extermination of approximately six million Jews.[iv]
The power of hate is at work in the world as never before, but may we remember the power of love, God’s love, is greater! Love and forgiveness will always overcome hate and unforgiveness.
If you believe in miracles, join me in praying and believing not only for a Christmas truce from the hatred and division that has been released in our nation, but for the miracle of transformed hearts.
Let’s pray for a Christmas miracle to overcome hate.
Love will always overcome hate. May we let His light so shine through us this Christmas that it will overcome the darkness and lead others to Him.
Prayer: Father, we pray for a Christmas miracle for America and the world in which forgiveness is released, hearts are healed and division must bow its knee. We pray for hearts to be transformed as they encounter Your love through Your people and experience the true meaning of Christmas.
[i] https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/the-real-story-of-the-christmas-truce. Accessed Nov 30, 2024.
[ii] https://www.history.com/news/christmas-truce-1914-world-war-i-soldier-accounts. Accessed Nov 30, 2024.
[iii] Ibid.
[iv] https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/estimated-number-of-jews-killed-in-the-final-solution. Accessed Nov 30, 2024.
