CHRISTMAS IN THE TRENCHES PROPHET
Isaiah 9:1-7

A sermon given by the Rev. Richard H. Taylor
December 4, 2005 / 2nd Sunday of Advent

As time has gone on, I think that “It Came Upon A Midnight Clear,” has become a favorite Christmas carol of mine. It has grown on me. It has no spectacular music. I think it is the words:

“And ye, beneath life's crushing load
Whose forms are bending low,
Who toil along the climbing way,
With painful steps and slow,
Look now, for glad and golden hours
Come swiftly on the wing;
O rest beside the weary road,
And hear the angels sing!”

“O rest beside the weary road and hear the angels sing!” As I have gotten older that sounds so attractive. It is like the Psalm, God “makes me to lie down in green pastures, [God] leads me beside stilled waters…” “O rest beside the weary road and hear the angels sing.”

In this world of war, and tragedy, and hunger, and earthquakes, and tsunamis, and hurricanes, wouldn't you like to rest beside the weary road and hear the angels sing?

But that is not the way the shepherds had it. They had no rest that night. They had to hasten on to Bethlehem to see the thing that had come to pass.

But I think their haste, their heeding the angel song had something to do with prophecy, something to do with their sense of Advent, something to do with their sense of expectancy of what would be. They knew the Messiah was to come. The prophets had foretold it. Was this it? Even an old person with creaky knees can rise for that annunciation. Is this it? Shall we run to Bethlehem and see?

“For lo, the days are hastening on,
By prophet bard foretold,
When with the ever circling years
Comes round the age of gold;
When peace shall over all the earth
Its ancient splendors fling,
And the whole world send back the song
Which now the angels sing.”

That's the Christmas I'm waiting for, the one I'm looking forward to: “When peace shall over all the earth its ancient splendors fling, And the whole world send back the song which now the angels sing.”

I am praying for peace. I hope you are too.

Did you see in the paper just a few weeks ago about the death of Alfred Anderson? Anderson, the paper says, was the last survivor of the World War I “Christmas Truce.” If you do not know the story of the Christmas truce, it is one of the most unusual real events of the last Century.

The first World War began in 1914 as a dispute among the nations led by Queen Victoria's grand children. Does anyone remember a real purpose for World War I?

Troops were rushed to the front where Germany had invaded France, and trenches were dug: miles and miles of trenches where one side hid from the other side; and a desolate bullet flying “no man's land” in between.

Winter came in that first year, cold and snowy, muddy, icy, and the dough boys wondered why they were there. So come Christmas morning, December 25, 1914, the two sides heard the other side singing Christmas carols. Guns were laid down, and some gained the courage to walk up the rise of the trench into the desolate land in between. Others followed. Soon cigarettes and buttons were being traded, pictures shown. They even played a soccer game. The truce extended along much of the 500 mile Western Front. In some places it lasted for days. Army commanders were alarmed. What if the soldiers find no reason to fight and go home?

It really happened.

But someone got them back into the trenches and firing their guns. Before long they'd killed off near ten millions of each other. Once they had killed that many of each other there were no more Christmas truces. Not in 1915. Not in 1916. Not in 1917. Once you kill and get killed you are ready to kill some more.

My friend Tim Brown is a composer. He has recently been completing a cantata based on war poems from the First World War. One day he sat down and told me about the poems he was using and the reality of that horrid trench warfare. He told me how he envisioned music to describe the experiences. I have never heard the music. His descriptions were so striking that I sat silent, almost shaking, at the vivid horror of war.

“When peace shall over all the earth its ancient splendors fling…”

We used to hand out bumper stickers for cars that read “Question Authority.” It doesn't mean you won't go along. All the bumper sticker said was “question authority.” Why are we here? Why are we digging trenches? What exactly is the reason that we are killing ten million of each other?

Now most of you probably know that my social positions are pretty left wing. But you might be surprised to know that I'm not much of a protestor. Oh, I'll go to a rally and cheer “Hooray for our side.” But I'm not too oriented to civil disobedience. I've long believed that the world will change through the power of the Word. It's a modest, rather fool-hardy stance: this belief that words change things.

But I look at those brave soldiers who walked into no man's land in 1914 and I marvel. You know there are some orders that are not to be obeyed. There are some things that just should not be done.

And so if you sing “Stille Nacht” at the dim sunrise of some winter morn, there may be some person on the other side that knows it. “‘Tis ‘Silent Night',” says I.

Start singing. Keep singing. “The world in solemn stillness lay to hear the angels sing.”

It will be harder in our generation. Muslims do not know “Silent Night,” and we do not know their peace songs. Our languages lack a common Latin root, and we are more inclined to declare the other side of the trench, the other, the different, the enemy.

But I still pray. I pray for December 25, 1914 all over again. I pray that Alfred Anderson and Francis Toliver will sing their songs, and Christmas will be ours. “And peace will over all the earth its ancient splendors fling…”

(Here is sung “Christmas in the Trenches,” by John McCutcheon.”)

“And his name shall be called wonderful, counselor, mighty God, everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.”

Amen.