"A Hospitable Space - A Sacred Space"
Sermon Presented December 25, 2005
Christmas Day
Luke 2:1-20
Christians who read the Christmas story recognize the stable as a holy space because of what occurred there - but hospitable? How hospitable can a smelly stable filled with animals be when a young woman is ready to deliver her first child?
The word hospitality means offering what we have in the service of another. With that definition in mind, I invite you to hear anew the Christmas story from the Gospel of Luke - as you look for both hospitability and holiness. Luke 2:1-20. (Read text.)
After hearing Luke's story, I want to tell you another story that Mary Murphy gave me. Mary found it in the Presby News, a publication of the John Knox Presbytery. This story also speaks of hospitality and the sacredness of space during a different time - an unlikely time - World War I. The story began on December 24, 1914, at the beginning of the Great War.
On that Christmas Eve day, two great armies, hundreds of thousands of British, French and German soldiers faced each other across a front that extended along the border between France and Belgium. It was a terrible war! Troops were dug into trenches cut into soggy, muddy soil. There was a constant struggle to keep the mud walls from collapsing. Just 50 to 100 yards away was the enemy trench. Each side's trench was protected by rolls of barbed wire. In between was no-man's-land. Both sides posted snipers to shoot anything that moved in the opposite trench. Hand grenades were thrown, artillery shells were lobbed, and on occasion, charges were launched, almost always with terrible results. Some of the trenches were so close that the men could hear voices call from the other side - "Englander!" from the Germans, and "Jerry" or "Fritz!" from the British.
As Christmas approached, troops on both sides received packages from home to boost morale. British troops received a Princess Mary Packet, containing cigarettes, pipe, tobacco, and a greeting card from the king. Each soldier also received a plum pudding and Cadbury chocolates. The German Christmas package contained tobacco, a Meerschaum pipe, and chocolates with the profile of Crown Prince Frederick Wilhelm. The German troops also received gifts of sausages and beer.
And there was another gift from the German government. The troops in the trenches received Christmas trees! As the sun moved across the sky that day, something strange began to happen. The shooting slowed down and then came to a halt. No one issued an order. Soldiers on both sides simply stopped shooting.
As the late afternoon dusk turned to darkness, British troops, peering through the gloom, saw Christmas trees with lighted candles on the parapets of every trench. Up and down the line, German troops displayed the trees their government had sent so that their British enemies could see them.
A German voice called out into the silent dark, "A gift is coming now!" The British dove for cover, expecting a grenade. What came across was a boot filled with sausages and chocolate. The British scurried to find one of the Princess Mary Packets, a plum pudding, and a Christmas card from the king to send in reply.
Then they began to sing: at first - patriotic songs, military songs, drinking songs. One side would sing, followed by applause from the opposite trench. And then it was eerily quiet - the lighted Christmas trees, the darkness. "Stille Nacht, Heilege Nacht," the Germans sang. "Silent Night, Holy Night." All up and down the front it spread, for miles and miles: "Stille Nacht, Heilege Nacht." All is calm, all is bright.
The British troops were spellbound. Some joined the singing. Some sang English hymns. As the sun rose on Christmas Day, signs emerged and voices from both sides shouted: "You no shoot. We no shoot!" Brave soldiers emerged from both sides - unarmed - and walked slowly, ever so cautiously, out of the trenches into no-man's-land and met in the middle, shook hands awkwardly, and exchanged Christmas greetings. Up and down the line, a spontaneous Christmas truce began. Gifts of cigarettes, candy, sausages, plum puddings and chocolates were exchanged - and then uniform insignia, brass buttons, and belt buckles. There was more singing and drinking.
At several places along the Western front, football games - soccer games - were played. Years later Paul McCartney wrote a song about the men coming out of the trenches and playing football, "Pipes of Peace."
The truce continued Christmas night and into the second day. And then after a week or so, it slowly deteriorated, and the shooting resumed. For the next forty-six months, there would be an average of six thousand deaths per day.
Nevertheless, historian Stanlye Weintraub wrote in his book Silent Night: The Story of the World War I Christmas Truce: "The Christmas Truce has lingered strikingly in British memory…a potent symbol of the stubborn humanity within us." (p. 173)
Just as God inhabited the space in the stable on the night Jesus was born, I believe God inhabited that battlefield on Christmas Eve, 1914 and made it a sacred space - if only for a short time. Here, God brought light into the darkest night as opposing troops looked at one another as fellow human beings and not enemies. It makes one wonder what would have happened if the war had not resumed on that front. We will never know.
The shepherds left the sacred spot where Christ was born and returned to the fields singing and praising God. How long did their joy last? We don't know. The soldiers were transformed for a few days, but then resumed their killing. That once sacred place was again covered with blood.
God's plan is that God's people will make the world a kinder, better, and more godly place through transformed lives. God's plan is that sometime, maybe even on this Christmas day, we will conclude that the best thing that we can ever do, the best way to live the rest of our lives, is in the love of Christ, reaching across the barriers that divide us, like those brave soldiers did for one shining moment 91 years ago.
This morning I invite you to make the places that you inhabit - both hospitable and holy. It can be done!
