Christmas Day, 1914. It is bitterly cold on the Western front. British soldiers are hunkered down in their trenches sipping hot beverages and trying to wrap their uniforms just a little tighter to ward off the stinging bite of the wintry air. All at once, the sound of German voices rings out from no man’s land. The soldiers tense and prepare to defend themselves, but it is not a battle cry that they have heard. The words are English, and in this death-strewn nightmare of a mortar-scarred landscape they seem totally out of place: “Merry Christmas!” Minutes later, the British and German soldiers are shaking hands, exchanging gifts, and even playing an impromptu game of soccer. The next day they will return to their respective battle lines. They will oppose one another. They will fire on one another. They will kill one another. But the killing can wait. Today is Christmas! Let there be a cessation of hostility.
This account is true, though the details may have been embellished a bit over the years. The Christmas Day truce is a powerful picture of sudden peace and reconciliation flooding into an arena otherwise characterized by hostility and pain. In 1999 a memorial to the truce was erected in Saint-Yves, Belgium. Appropriately, it was in the form of a cross.
“How fitting that the symbol of the cross was used,” notes Paul Hartog in Wednesday morning’s conference session. Paul is vice president for Academic Services at Faith Baptist Bible College. “Although the purpose probably was not theological,” he says, “even unwittingly the cross truly is the fitting symbol of reconciliation, of hostility that has ended.”
Paul’s epistle to the Galatians is rich with themes of reconciliation. In Christ, the dividing line that once separated Jews and Gentiles, just as surely and starkly as no man’s land separated the British and German troops during the Great War, has been utterly and permanently broken down (Gal. 2:13, 14). A brand new entity—the church of Jesus Christ—has now been formed, and it is an entity characterized by fellowship and charity (Gal. 2:15, 16). All who by faith have gained entrance into this new family also receive the privilege of equal unfettered access to the throne of God (Gal. 2:17, 18). The hostilities and separations have been extinguished. Let there be shalom.
Of course, this interpersonal fellowship is possible only because of the believer’s prior reconciliation with God Himself, which is purchased by Christ’s atoning blood and accomplished through union with Him. “Even as the upright post of the cross speaks of vertical reconciliation between God and man, even so the crossbar speaks of horizontal reconciliation between humans,” Hartog says. “The hostility has been abolished in Christ.”
Unfortunately, not all churches actively demonstrate the depths of peace and harmony that Jesus paid so much to secure for them. The doctrine of our union with Christ, then, is both a blessing and a challenge. “Is your church known as a fellowship of peace? Of shalom?” Hartog asks. “Or does it have a different reputation?”
Hear the sermon audio below:
