From the Salmon

When I decided last week to share a song each Friday that would echo the traditional Advent theme for the week, I didn’t think it would be a particularly challenging task.

And yet here I sit, staring at the screen, waiting for the words to come.

Hope? Love? Joy? No problem.

But Peace? At a time like this? You’ve got to be kidding me.

I mean, it looks nice on a greeting card, doesn’t it? Probably in some sort of scripty typeface below an unassuming, decorative angel: “Peace.”

But we don’t live in a greeting card world.

In our world of violence, do we have the imagination to know what it means to be peacemakers? Do we have the courage? Would we even know where to start?

Last week, four members of an organization called Christian Peacemaker Teams were taken hostage in Iraq. Their abductors have made demands that will never be met — the release of Iraqi prisoners — and have threatened to kill their captives if those demands are not satisfied by December 10.

I realize that what these four people were doing in Iraq is both provocative and controversial. Standing in the crossfire to teach nonviolence to people living and fighting in a war zone isn’t exactly an act of self-preservation. And these four knew the risks they were taking. Part of their mission is this: “We believe that until people committed to nonviolence are willing to take the same risks for peace that soldiers are willing to take for war, people will always choose violence as the most viable solution to their problems.”

If we are to understand peace as Christians, we need to face up to the idea that being a peacemaker in a world of violence will always be provocative and risky. The call of Jesus to “take up your cross and follow me” is not the way of self-preservation.

On the day before he was abducted, CPT worker Tom Fox wrote this:

Why are we here?

If I understand the message of God, his response to that question is that we are to take part in the creation of the Peaceable Realm of God. Again, if I understand the message of God, how we take part in the creation of this realm is to love God with all our heart, our mind and our strength and to love our neighbors and enemies as we love God and ourselves. In its essential form, different aspects of love bring about the creation of the realm.

I have read that the word in the Greek Bible that is translated as “love” is the word “agape.” Again, I have read that this word is best expressed as a profound respect for all human beings simply for the fact that they are all God’s children. I would state that idea in a somewhat different way, as “never thinking or doing anything that would dehumanize one of my fellow human beings.”

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It seems as if the first step down the road to violence is taken when I dehumanize a person. That violence might stay within my thoughts or find its way into the outer world and become expressed verbally, psychologically, structurally or physically. As soon as I rob a fellow human being of his or her humanity by sticking a dehumanizing label on them, I begin the process that can have, as an end result, torture, injury and death.

What does this all have to do with Advent?

It seems to me that Advent is a time of longing and anticipation. Part of that longing is for reconciliation and renewal. And part of that anticipation is for a day when people will no longer see violence as the solution to their problems.

I know I promised you a song and here I am giving you a sermon instead. Tell you what, I’ll finish up with a song that always gives me chills. It’s John McCutcheon’s “Christmas in the Trenches,” about the 1914 Christmas Truce during World War I. I think it’s a fitting way to follow up on those thoughts from Tom Fox.

“Christmas in the Trenches”
from John McCutcheon’s Winter Solstice

My name is Francis Tolliver, I come from Liverpool,
Two years ago the war was waiting for me after school.
To Belgium and to Flanders to Germany to here
I fought for King and country I love dear.
‘Twas Christmas in the trenches where the frost so bitter hung,
The frozen fields of France were still, no Christmas song was sung,
Our families back in England were toasting us that day,
Their brave and glorious lads so far away.

I was lying with my messmate on the cold and rocky ground
When across the lines of battle came a most peculiar sound
Says I, “Now listen up, me boys!” each soldier strained to hear
As one young German voice sang out so clear.
“He’s singing bloody well, you know!” my partner says to me
Soon one by one each German voice joined in in harmony
The cannons rested silent, the gas clouds rolled no more
As Christmas brought us respite from the war.

As soon as they were finished and a reverent pause was spent
“God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” struck up some lads from Kent
The next they sang was “Stille Nacht,” “Tis ‘Silent Night’,” says I
And in two tongues one song filled up that sky.
“There’s someone coming towards us!” the front line sentry cried
All sights were fixed on one lone figure coming from their side
His truce flag, like a Christmas star, shone on that plain so bright
As he bravely strode unarmed into the night.

Soon one by one on either side walked into No Man’s land
With neither gun nor bayonet we met there hand to hand
We shared some secret brandy and we wished each other well
And in a flare-lit soccer game we gave ‘em hell.
We traded chocolates, cigarettes, and photographs from home
These sons and fathers far away from families of their own
Young Sanders played his squeeze box and they had a violin
This curious and unlikely band of men.

Soon daylight stole upon us and France was France once more
With sad farewells we each began to settle back to war
But the question haunted every heart that lived that wondrous night
“Whose family have I fixed within my sights?”
‘Twas Christmas in the trenches, where the frost so bitter hung
The frozen fields of France were warmed as songs of peace were sung
For the walls they’d kept between us to exact the work of war
Had been crumbled and were gone for evermore.

My name is Francis Tolliver, in Liverpool I dwell
Each Christmas come since World War I I’ve learned its lessons well
That the ones who call the shots won’t be among the dead and lame
And on each end of the rifle we’re the same.

Purchase “Christmas in the Trenches” at iTunes

I pray for Tom Fox, James Loney, Harmeet Sooden, Norman Kember and their families. I pray for their captors, that they might learn the meaning of mercy. And I pray for our churches, that we may be more imaginitive and courageous in seeking reconciliation and peace.