An unexpected miracle took place along the killing fields of Belgium and France, all because the men shared the same faith and wanted to celebrate the birth of their Lord and Savior in peace.
As Christmas Eve began in 1914, the soldiers sitting in the frost-covered trenches were miserably cold, homesick, and tired of war. The politicians and generals, who were somewhere resting cozily at home or sipping alcoholic beverages in a heated room, had told them that the war would be over “before the leaves fall.”
Five months earlier, their leaders had announced they must go to war to save themselves, their families, and their country. Citizens cheered as they flocked to the streets and town squares. After all, they were the good guys, their enemies were bad, and 1914 was a glorious time to be alive!
This Night Is Different
For five months, the good guys killed the bad guys. A week before Christmas Eve, attacking Allied soldiers were cut down mercilessly by machine gun fire from the German line. This night, however, was different. Christmas trees suddenly began appearing on top of the parapets all along the same German line. The very men who fired the deadly weapons that butchered their friends were now singing “Stille Nacht” and yelling Christmas greetings to them across no man’s land.
