Sunday, December 28, 2014

A Truce of the Soldiers' Making, Not from Their Commanders

   When people do uncommonly good things, it should be newsworthy, and when they do something that can be hailed as a miracle -- for so rare a thing it is -- then it should be celebrated.
   But, the 100th anniversary of the Christmas Miracle of 1914 went largely unnoticed, alas and alas.
   It was 100 years ago this year that German soldiers raised little Christmas trees with lit candles. They raised them from their trenches as a show of peace. And, they sang a Christmas song. American soldiers responded. Soon, all along about a 27-mile span, different sets of combatants were breaking out of the trenches to smoke with each other, play football, fraternize . . .
   They were pausing to observe the birth of a Savior.
   It started on Christmas Eve, and continued on Christmas Day, a truce not drafted by military leaders, nor by the leaders of the nations, but by the soldiers who refused to fight that Christmas Day, soldiers who laid down their weapons of war to honor the birth of the Prince of Peace.
    Was it a miracle? I don't know whether it warrants that, but perhaps. You certainly might look in vain for how many times soldiers, in the name of peace, have laid down arms without the approval of higher officers.
   It is a story that begs a telling, and a place in our history books. It remains one of the more unusual occurrences in all the history of America, and of Germany. War has seldom been marked by such an outbreak of peace.
   (Edited 12/29/2014)

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