Tale of 1914 Christmas Day Truce Is Inspiring, Though Hard to Believe

[This famous scene took place 100 years ago today, on Christmas, 1914.]

By Rob Hughes  Dec. 23, 2014

LONDON — The Christmas Truce, when British and German soldiers were said to have suddenly stopped fighting on the Western Front for a few hours on Christmas Day 1914, is written in history.

What started with the singing of “Stille Nacht” on the German side, followed by a response of “Silent Night,” was said to have included an impromptu soccer game on the No Man’s Land between the opposing trenches.

“We all grew up with the story of soldiers from both sides putting down their arms on Christmas Day when gunfire gave way to gifts,” Prince William said at a ceremony in England two weeks ago to unveil a memorial to the event.

“Football,” the prince continued, “has the power to bring people together and break down barriers. It is vital that 100 years on, we keep the Christmas Truce story alive. It remains wholly relevant today as a message of hope and humanity, even in the bleakest of times.”

Hope and humanity and perhaps, ultimately, futility.

Soccer is a remarkable game that crosses boundaries around this world. But whatever took place on that day a century ago did not stop the carnage that took an estimated 16 million lives, nor did it break down barriers to prevent wars today.

“Sport, not war” has to be among the most contrite of phrases.

The sculpture unveiled by Prince William was designed by a 10-year-old boy, Spencer Turner. It depicts two hands clasped in friendship inside the outline of a ball. It is simple, brilliant and full of boyish hope.

And grown men are running with that hope. There have been re-enactments of the reported No Man’s Land game, including a match between the British Army and German Army teams in Aldershot, England, and a game in Belgium this week near the Flemish field where the truce happened.

UEFA, the European soccer authority, put together a short video in which former stars — England’s Bobby Charlton, Germany’s Paul Breitner and France’s Didier Deschamps — read a narrative and current players — Wayne Rooney, Philipp Lahm and Hugo Lloris — read aloud soldiers’ letters from the front lines in 1914.

All of it is heartfelt. For the record, Germany, the current world champion, has won four World Cups to England’s one in the sport now played by 209 national associations.

The brief cease-fire on the Western Front in Belgium followed a published letter from women’s suffrage advocates in England calling upon “the Women of Germany and Austria” to demand peace at Christmastime in 1914. Undoubtedly, some men on the front lines did leave their frozen, muddied trenches to not only bury their dead, but to exchange gifts of tobacco or even tunic button.

Henry Williamson, then a 19-year-old private in the London Rifle Brigade who survived the war to become an author, sent a letter from the front to his mother. “In my mouth,” he wrote, “is a pipe presented by the Princess Mary. In the pipe is German tobacco. Ha ha, you say, from a prisoner or found in a captured trench, Oh dear, no! From a German soldier. Yes a live German soldier from his own trench. Marvelous, isn’t it?”

Other letters, published in The Times of London, alluded to the game or games that broke out. Some suggest that they were kick-abouts, mainly between English soldiers using made up balls — some say a can of corned beef served as a substitute.

Fewer accounts came from the German side, although Richard Schirrmann wrote the following December that his regiment, which was holding a position in the hills of occupied Belgium, received a request from Belgian troops to be allowed to send letters to their families. “Something fantastically unmilitary occurred,” Schirrmann reported. “German and French troops spontaneously made peace and ceased hostilities. They visited each other and exchanged wine, cognac and cigarettes for Westphalian black bread, biscuits and ham.”

Schirrmann survived the war and set up the German Youth Hostel Association in 1919.

By the following Christmas, the truce was banned under threat of a court martial for any soldier on either side who dared to fraternize with the enemy.

The story of the Christmas Truce, and soccer’s part in it, became gilded over the decades. It is implausible, but not impossible, that any soldier smuggled a leather ball — or even the inflatable pig’s bladder inside the casing — to the trenches. But that is how it has become depicted in accounts fictionalized and made more beautiful.

Robert Graves, the British poet and writer, in 1962 reconstructed a story of the event, with Germany’s 133rd Royal Saxon Regiment taking on what he called Scottish troops. In Graves’s account, the Germans won, 3-2.

In the match between the British and German army teams last week in Aldershot, the British won, 1-0.

Soccer and war have intersected again over the past century. Perhaps the most evocative of triumphs was strife-torn Iraq emerging as the winner of the 2007 Asian Cup that was played across four countries: Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam.

Soccer can indeed survive hostilities. But only at Christmastime will a story be believed that both sides would put down their arms to meet in No Man’s Land. A beautiful memory, made more beautiful in the subsequent years of man’s imagination.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/24/sports/soccer/tale-of-1914-christmas-day-truce-soccer-game.html?_r=0  

Christmas & Fathers: 4 lessons from Joseph

By Dr. Corne J. Becker  Published December 24, 2014

Mary, the mother of Jesus, features prominently in our Christmas celebrations. Christmas carols, greeting cards and nativity reenactments all celebrate the important role she played in the birth of the Messiah. But what about Joseph? What does the Christmas story say about the role of fathers?

The Gospel of Matthew, written in the second half of the first century to a predominantly Jewish audience, places Joseph at the center of the birth of Christ. Complimentary to the Gospel of Luke where most of the activity centers on Mary, Matthew reports that it is Joseph that is instructed by an angel in a dream not to call off his impending marriage to Mary. Joseph is pictured as a decisive leader, protector and provider for his family in this Gospel.

The birth narratives of Jesus in Matthew, not only highlights the importance of family as the building block of a stable society, but also communicates the importance of fathers in the raising of children. With Joseph as our example, four lessons for fathers can be taken from this Christmas story.

First, to be a father is not just a biological description. Joseph was not the physical father of Jesus, but as instructed by the angel took Mary as his wife and provided a home for Jesus. Being a father is a matter of the heart. Joseph is a great role model for those fathers that have chosen to raise non-biological children as their own. Fathers create homes for children by enlarging their hearts and providing a safe and nurturing environment for them.

Second, fathers model good values to their children. Matthew calls Joseph a just man. This is in sharp contrast to the wicked Herod in the same Gospel, who kills numerous boys in his narcissistic rage as he attempts to remove the pending threat of the birth of the King of the Jews. We are inundated with so many painful recollections of fathers that did not match the expectations of their children.  Good fathers embody the moral and hopeful ideals of their children. They model the way.

Third, fathers do all in their power to protect their family. Joseph, warned in a dream about the murderous plans of Herod, moves his family to the safety of Egypt. This selfless act of Joseph illustrates what good fathers do best – they place the interest of their families above their own.

Lastly, fathers provide a future for their children. Once again, Matthew records that Joseph in returning from Egypt scanned the environment and decided to move Jesus and Mary to Galilee, far from the watchful eye of Archelaus, the ruler that succeeded Herod. Good fathers recognize that fathering does not end when children turn of age. Fathers consider the future of their children beyond their own mortality and work to provide a prosperous and successful future for them.

Perhaps the time has come to reconsider the role of Joseph in our celebration of Christmas. May we rediscover not only his good example, but the stabilizing and transformative effect that good fathers have on children, families and societies.

Dr. Corne J. Bekker is a professor & Dept Chair of Biblical Studies & Christian Ministry at Regent University in Virginia Beach, Va.
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2014/12/24/christmas-and-fathers-four-lessons-from-gospel-matthew/   

Scoundrels in the Stable

            

In Jesus’ day, shepherds were thought of as shady, disreputable, untrustworthy, irreligious, but not good.  A shepherd was sneaky, shifty, and likely a thief.   Shepherds were despised by religious leaders, since living out in the hills, they were unable to wash regularly and observe the ceremonial and dietary laws.  Shepherds were not eligible for judicial office.  They were not permitted to be a witness in a court because they were so untrustworthy.  They were not allowed to enter the temple.

                                   

For Jesus to say, “I am the good shepherd” sounded strange, like a contradiction or oxymoron.  Imagine someone today saying "I am the good thief," or "I am the good drug dealer."  Maybe Jesus identified with shepherds because He too was scorned by the establishment.  Jesus knew what it was like to be despised, to have people watch you with squinty, suspicious eyes. 

           

Somehow it seems only fitting that the first visitors to see the Lamb of God were shepherds.  They hustle to the stable and are first in line to touch the hem of heaven.  God communicated first to the shepherds in the fields.  Not the pure and holy, not the high and mighty, not the Bethlehem ministerial association, but the sneaky, low-life shepherds.  I guess God sees the good in the worst of us and the bad in the best of us.  I guess we should think twice before we look down our noses at present-day shepherds.

Shepherds were the first to hear the Good News of the birth of God’s Son.  Shepherds were the first to visit and honor the baby Jesus in the stable with Mary and Joseph.  If God could allow scoundrels like shepherds in the presence of his Son, I guess there’s hope for people like you and me.

            

Lessons from a Salvation Army Bell Ringer

By Jay Lowder   Published December 11, 2014  FoxNews.com

“I don’t have time. I just don’t have it. I need to get home.”

I repeated those words to myself the second I saw him. He was hard to miss, considering the highly unusual way he was ringing the bell. He didn’t just gently twitch it like the Salvation Army bell ringers from past Christmases; he rang it as though he were announcing freedom on the Liberty Bell in Independence Hall.

Furthermore, he was prancing around the kettle, knees jerking upward with each step, like a show horse. He was African-American, missing a front tooth, probably in his early 60s, with a warm voice and personality that were both easy and irresistible.

“How can someone be so happy?” I wondered. It was freezing outside, he was living at the Salvation Army and his job certainly wouldn’t qualify as one of Forbes’ top 10 careers.

“How can someone be so happy?” I wondered. It was freezing outside, he was living at the Salvation Army and his job certainly wouldn’t qualify as one of Forbes’ top 10 careers.

I was intrigued, but I had no cash, and I feared that initiating a conversation, or even saying “hello,” might make me feel obligated to explain why I wasn’t giving. Even though I had avoided eye contact, walked several feet away and kept my head pointed down, he ignored my body language’s obvious message.

As I rushed by, he beckoned, “Sir, I hope you’re having a good day.”

His kind, curious address surprised me. Though wary, I walked over to him.

“Sir, you’re out here helping others, but who is willing to help you?” I asked.

Smiling, he said, “I don't want anyone to help me. I just want to help others!”

I asked if I could get him something to drink in the supermarket. After a little banter he eventually gave in. “If you must,” he said, “then a cup of coffee would be great.”

I felt like a prancer myself as I sashayed to the deli to get a large coffee and a baggie of cream, sugar and a stir stick. Back outside, he met me with a joyful grin, expressed his gratitude and gave me a big bear hug. He then leaned in close and asked if he could tell me a quick story.

Rushing home no longer mattered. I found myself captivated — eager to hear what he had to say.

He said he’d been lying in his Salvation Army bed the night before, reading the Bible, when he felt led to write down three specific verses. The next morning, he was convinced he would meet three specific people to whom he was supposed to give the verses.

He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper. “I already gave out the other two verses and this is the only one I have left,” he said. “But I believe you are meant to get it. Can I read it to you?”

It was Hebrews 6:10, and he read it aloud: “God is not unjust; he will not forget your work and the love you have shown Him as you have helped his people and continue to help them.”

I was stunned. The encounter could have so easily been missed. I hugged him and expressed my thanks, though my words didn’t seem capable of conveying the desired depth. I also told him I would return soon to check in.

My first response to the bell ringer had been to see him as a person in need. However, it became clear to me that the bell ringer didn’t need me — I needed him.

The next day, I wrote an abbreviated version of the story on social media. I didn’t provide the man’s name or the location of the grocery store, but people took notice. When I stopped by the store a few days later, he was on fire with excitement. He told me people bought him coffee, hugged him and handed him verses. He felt like a celebrity.

The bell ringer estimated at least 200 people had approached him after reading the story on “the computer.” With arms spread wide, he said, “I’ve never felt so much love in my whole life!”

My family, who had all met him through their various trips to buy groceries, decided to invite him over for a steak dinner. When I offered the invitation, he gladly accepted. Four days later, I went to the Salvation Army to pick him up, only to find he had evaporated like morning dew.

No one knew why or where he had gone. I tracked down his brother, but even he was worriedly searching for signs of him.

It’s been two weeks. We are hopeful he will turn up before Christmas.

With the all the holiday hoopla, that bell ringer reminds me that Christmas isn’t just a time to gather with friends and family. It’s also many opportunities to intentionally connect with others who may not share our culture, background, politics or skin color.

Often, some of life’s best lessons come through unfamiliar teachers who are unsuspecting people of greatness. In giving, we receive. In forgiving, we are forgiven. In rescuing, we are rescued.  

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2014/12/11/lessons-from-salvation-army-bell-ringer/  
Jay Lowder is founder of Jay Lowder Harvest Ministries, an organization dedicated to reaching diverse groups of people with the message of Jesus Christ. Through his ministry, Lowder travels the globe to football stadiums, schools, churches, and coliseums to provide a message of hope to the hurting.

Christmas in 1776, by Thomas Kidd

Dec. 18, 2012  By Thomas Kidd          

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/anxiousbench/2012/12/christmas-in-1776/

Tis the season to argue about religion. Or more specifically, to feud about whether to say Merry Christmas or Seasons Greetings…to call it a Christmas Village or a Holiday Village…or to allow a crèche or menorah to stand on public property.

What would Americans at the time of our nation’s founding think about all this? They would have been perplexed. Perplexed, first, at the ways that we fuss about the public role of religion. As I discuss in God of Liberty, the Revolutionary era was shot through with public expressions of faith, from the days of prayer and fasting declared by presidents, to the chaplains employed by the Continental Congress and Washington’s army, to the faith principles undergirding the Revolution itself, especially the notion that all men are created equal. The concept of a public square stripped of religion would have been deeply unfamiliar to Americans in 1776.

But they would also find our kind of Christmas strange, and probably unpleasant. We are constantly warned by the prophets of our age–Charlie Brown and Snoopy chief among them–that we should not become obsessed with commercialism at Christmas. Yet this is like warning fish about the pollution in water–a world of consumption is what we Americans live and breathe in.

Christmas in 1776 was very different. One difference, of course, is that America was engaged in a terrible war with Britain. That is why George Washington and his army spent Christmas night of 1776 crossing the Delaware River through a blizzard of sleet–to attack the Hessians at Trenton, New Jersey.

Wartime or not, Christmas was not a big public spectacle at the time of the Founding. One searches in vain through the newspapers and almanacs of the Revolutionary War period to find references to Christmas. It was almost never mentioned, even on December 25 itself. When it was, the holiday was usually only cited as a reference point. (“General Washington hopes that the war will be over by Christmas,” and such.)

But let’s not be romantic about their simple, subdued Christmas, either. One reason that Christmas was downplayed in the New England states is because the Puritan fathers had banned Christmas for much of the seventeenth century. This was not because they were killjoys, but because they did not see how the Bible taught a December Christmas. They believed that the festival of Christmas was invented by medieval Catholics–and this was never a good thing, if you were a Puritan.

You did see occasional evidence of commercialism in Revolutionary America, too, especially after the war was over. In the Christmas Eve edition of Rivington’s New York Gazette for 1783, there was a screaming advertisement–almost reminiscent of our “Black Friday” ads–for “CHRISTMAS and NEW YEAR’S PRESENTS,” which included gold and silver watches; goblets fit for drinking “Porter, Ales, Punch, Sangree” and other holiday beverages; and assortments of stockings which the merchant pronounced “Monstrous Cheap.”

Christmas at the time of the founding–for those who embraced it–was mostly a family and church affair. Lauren Winner’s delightful book A Cheerful and Comfortable Faith shows how Christmas occurred naturally as a part of the household devotion of eighteenth-century Anglicans in Virginia. Wealthy families there often had sumptuous feasts. At one Christmas dinner, the menu of the Fairfax family included “six mince pies, seven custards, twelve tarts, one chicken pie, and four puddings.” Twelfth Night, the evening signaling the end of the Christmas season, saw even bigger bashes, which could sometimes turn into drunken brawls. Devout Anglicans also made their way to church for the Sunday of Christmas week, where they would hear a special sermon on the incarnation, and receive communion.

In modern America, outdoor nativity scenes and other Christmas displays became common after World War I, encouraged by the advent of electricity to light them at night. Some of these displays ended up on government property, a circumstance which predictably elicited lawsuits by secularists. The first major lawsuit on this topic sought to remove a nativity scene from the White House Ellipse in 1969. A number of contradictory court decisions have followed, fostering annual feuding and court cases regarding Christmas or Hanukkah displays.

Americans of 1776 had no particular need for public manger scenes. Christmas, when observed, fit easily in the traditional rhythms of home and church life. Obviously, they had no secularists screeching for the removal of Baby Jesus from the public park, either. His image was not there in the first place, nor did it need to be. Their society was already pervasively religious, even though not every American was a saint. They lived in a serenely religious milieu that we can only approximate today. We certainly can’t recreate it on today’s fractious courthouse square. Thankfully, believers can still foster an indisputably Christian Christmas in our homes and churches. I guess that is where Christmas is the most edifying anyway.