The Christmas Truce (Sermon Illustration)

Jesus is the common thread that unites all believers.

One of the great beauties of the gospel is the way that it welcomes all believers—regardless of race, nationality, language, social status, or background—into one Christian family.

There may be no greater example of this than the true story of The Christmas Truce of 1914:

World War I had begun only months before, and the fighting on the Western Front between the Germans and the Allies was very fierce. Hope for a quick war was gone. Both armies knew they would be bitter enemies for years.

A system of trenches separated the two sides, with the area in between regarded as “No Man’s Land.” But on Christmas Eve, an unofficial truce began. German soldiers began singing “Silent Night” in German, and men on the other side of the great divide joined along in English. Soldiers who hours before had been attempting to kill one another were now singing together about the wonder of Christ’s birth.

As the night and the singing continued, the soldiers emerged out of their trenches to join one another in “No Man’s Land,” where they exchanged gifts, shared in burial services, and played soccer together. An estimated 100,000 soldiers along the Western Front laid down their weapons all that night and the next day. In subsequent years their commanders would demand that they continue fighting on Christmas Day, but in this one sacred interlude in 1914, a reminder of the incarnation caused a cease-fire. Even if for a brief moment, there was peace on earth and good will toward men.¹

 

1. Matt Chandler, Josh Patterson, and Eric Geiger, Creature of the Word: The Jesus-Centered Church (Nashville: B&H Publishing Group, 2012), 50.

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