Christmas Chapel message 121610

Christmas Chapel message 121610
Vicar Darren Harbaugh

Does anybody here know what a truce is? (When two sides agree to stop fighting). Almost a hundred years ago, there was a terrible war being fought in Europe called the Great War or World War I. During that war, on Christmas Eve of 1914, the soldiers called a truce. They decided to stop fighting for one night, so that there would be peace during Christmas. Nothing quite like that has ever happened before or since. The soldiers, who were enemies, took turn singing Christmas songs, like “Silent Night,” to each other instead of fighting.

Some soldiers even went into “no man’s land” - the area between the two enemy armies where normally no one wants to go because they are afraid of being attacked, they went into this area and exchanged gifts and played soccer with each other. Unfortunately, after Christmas, the war continued for almost 4 more years.

But you know, many many years before World War I, there was another war going on - A war between God and man. We are sinful humans and our sins are like fighting against God. We have no way of winning this war. In fact, we would be lost for sure if we kept fighting God. God could crush us. But guess who called a truce in this war (God). Our Heavenly Father called a truce, He wanted to put an end to the fight. On Christmas, we can see God the Father calling a truce. There are two places we can look.

One is the manger where Jesus was born and the other is the cross, where Jesus died for our sins. Jesus’ coming to earth and dying took away our sin, our fighting with God. It put an end to the war.

Jesus brought a truce between us and God. Or to say it in Christmas language, Jesus made peace with God and man, like it says in our bible reading from Luke 2: “And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.’” On Christmas, we thank God that because of Jesus, he allows us to sleep in heavenly peace. Amen.