At a breakfast meeting last week, a group of clergy was sitting around talking. We'd been lamenting the most recent violence in the Middle East. Occupation troops. Suicide bombers. Retaliatory bombing strikes. More desperation. Poverty. Power. Ancient enmities made new every day. One friend said sadly, "The old peace-on-earth theme rings a bit hollow this year, doesn't it?" and we all nodded dejectedly.

The next day I received a Christmas card from a wise, astute, caring friend. It is a beautiful white dove of peace with an olive branch carried in its beak. "Peace on earth" the caption read. Under which my friend had penned: "Why not?"

These exchanges kept nagging at me as I moved into sermon preparation, asking myself questions that perhaps many of you are asking, too. What do these words mean? Are the words of the prophets and the angels just wishing upon a star? Pie in the sky? Platitudes meant as trappings for the season, but nothing more? As Christians, how are we to hear the words of God's prophets, Isaiah, John the Baptist, Jesus of Nazareth, in this world in which we live? It's important to know, first of all, as our students in both Disciple Bible Study groups know, no doubt, that the prophet Isaiah's words were written during and for a time of war. Several hundred years before the birth of Jesus, Syria, Assyria, Israel, and other tribes and factions were locked in bloody combat, much as they are now. The verses we heard lay readers read from chapter 11 follow in chapter 10 his vivid description of the sweeping victories of the Assyrian forces under King Sennacherib. The fortified cities of Judah had fallen. Only the surrender of King Hezekiah and payment of a large tribute saved Jerusalem from destruction. The people were crushed by terror and despair. Violence defined their world. Yet in this moment, Isaiah prophesies of a new king who will come and usher in an era of peace. From the stump of Jesse, through the lineage of David, a new king would come. This king, the prophet foretold, would be full of God's spirit and endowed with wisdom. He would lead by judging the poor with righteousness. He would be clothed not with the weapons of war, but with justice around his waist and faithfulness the belt upon his hips. Even the animal kingdom would be transformed by this new reign of peace, prophesied Isaiah. "They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea." In our understanding, prophets are messengers of God. They are the voice of God. The great rabbi and teacher of our century, Abraham Joshua Heschel, wrote that God "thrusts a burden" upon the prophet so that "God is raging in the prophet's words." And so, we look to the prophets to see what God is expecting of his faithful people, not in some imaginary never-never-land, but right in the very heart of the complex, exasperating, violent world in which we live and strive to be faithful. Heschel maintained that the prophets' words reveal to us that God is concerned with our real lives, that God's truth is not "timeless and detached from the world, but a way of living. . . . The word of God must not be an object of contemplation," he wrote, "but the word of God must become history." It is a "demand of God, more real than a mountain, more powerful than all thunders." Advent comes back 'round to the church each year to bring us the prophets' words. They break through our complacency, our easy acceptance of the status quo, our cynical despair that 'nothing will ever change.' "You brood of vipers," John the Baptist cried to the religious leaders of his day. You want to be washed in the purifying bath but you don't want to have to change a thing about how you think or how you live. Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven has come near!" The Kingdom of Heaven has come near. Prophets help us to see when this is happening. God's ways, Abraham Heschel said, are shrouded and perplexing. "Prophecy is a moment of unshrouding, an opening of the eyes, a lifting of the curtain. Such moments in history are rare . . . it is as if God opened a door." On rare occasions, God opens the door. But in order for us to see, and then to act, we cannot just go on as we have. In John's words, we must repent. That is, we must let our minds be changed in a radical way. We must embrace the truth of God's promise for the world, a promise of mercy and power, of righteousness and faithfulness. I read a book this week that I commend to you in this season, for it tells the story of one such miraculous unshrouded moment in human history, when God opened a door and the Kingdom of Heaven came near. It was written by Prof. Stanley Weintraub, military historian, professor emeritus of arts and humanities at Penn. State University, author of numerous histories and biographies, including MacArthur's War. His latest book is entitled, Silent Night: The Story of the World War I Christmas Truce. I had heard this story years ago, but thought it involved just a handful of soldiers. Weintraub's study works from firsthand accounts to document the full scope of this unparalleled spontaneous truce. Christmas Eve 1914 arrived early in that war. Four million had already died in trench warfare. The Pope's call for peace had been dismissed as naive. Along the front line in Flanders Field in Belgium, the troops of two of Queen Victoria's grandsons, Kaiser Wilhelm II and King George V, blood enemies, faced off against each other. The opposing troops lived in cold mud trenches made slick and putrid by constant rain, just sixty yards or so from one another. Each day a few inches would be captured by one side or the other. A no man's land separated the enemies, across which they could hear each other talking, living, the wounded groaning in agony, as they prepared for the next day's assault. As in most wars, there had already been moments when the shooting would cease long enough for troops to retrieve their dead and so forth. But, as December deepened, these incidents became more frequent. Many of the German soldiers had lived in England prior to the war, working as waiters and busboys, and they spoke some English. Soldiers started calling out to each other across the lines, bantering, taunting, sharing cigarettes. Enough so that various commanding officers found it necessary to forbid such fraternizing exchanges. As Christmas approached, troops on both sides had been receiving large quantities of gifts from home, supplied by their governments and loved ones. Tins of cigarettes and cigars, sweets for non-smokers, plum puddings, salamis, mufflers, even Christmas trees, a German custom which had recently become popular in England. In the fashion of the day, these were small tabletop trees, about 30" high. On Christmas Eve, quite unexpectedly, German soldiers up and down the front lines began placing their Christmas trees on the top of the trench, clearly visible to the British troops, and lighting the candles on each bough. They began to sing carols, often familiar in both languages. Stille Nacht, Silent Night. Soon the troops were holding their fire and coming out to greet one another and exchange greetings and gifts. Normally, lighting a cigarette in the darkness of night was enough to get you shot, but on this night, Weintraub documents, the shooting stopped. The unofficial truce continued through the night and through Christmas Day and "Boxing Day," the day following. Food was shared, soccer matches enjoyed, and fondest wishes for an early end to the war expressed by newly made friends. HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF SOLDIERS ACTED IN THIS UNPRECEDENTED DISPLAY OF MUTUAL TRUST AND SHARED HUMANITY, UP AND DOWN THE FRONT LINES, MANY WRITING IN THEIR DAIRIES AND LETTERS HOME, TELLING THEIR LOVED ONES ABOUT THE TRUCE IN TERMS OF NEAR DISBELIEF. Sadly, they were soon ordered back into battle. The firing resumed and the war dragged on for another four years. Ten million more soldiers and civilians died. But the story of the miraculous Christmas Truce stands as a testament to the in-breaking power of the Christmas promise of peace and good will. A Scottish poet wrote in his Carol from Flanders: "0 ye who read this truthful rime from Flanders, kneel and say: God speed the time when every day shall be as Christmas Day." And so, in these Advent days, dear brothers and sisters, as you hear the world news, more often than not bad news, remember that the whole story of the times in which we live will not be told on CNN or any other news channel. For the whole story is framed by a promise made and not forgotten. A promise never broken. A promise told and retold by God's prophets and from time to time revealed to us. God creates a deep longing within us for the whole story. The story which promises: "They will not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord. And a little child shall lead them. . . ." Just how does the word of God's promise become history, become real? Heschel says that "it is hiding in the world and must become real in our deeds." This Advent, let us turn, repent, and prepare for the coming of the Lord. Let us become as children, open, trusting, eager for our hearts to believe more than what the eye alone can see. Let us light the lights of our Christmas trees and lift them high above the entrenched terror of our days. Let us turn, and embrace the truth of God's promise for our world and our lives. NOTES Heschel, Abraham Joshua. I Asked for Wonder: A Spiritual Anthology. Samuel H. Dresner (Editor), New York: Crossroad. 1991. Weintraub, Stanley. Silent Night: The Story of the World War I Christmas Truce. New York: The Free Press. 2001. © Patricia E. Farris, 2001. Permission is given for brief quotation with attribution. All other rights reserved.