A Christmas Truce

How do we begin again? How do we, who have witnessed the pain and cruelty of this cold and broken world find meaning once more and accept the grace to move forward on this journey of salvation that is ours through Christ? It seems of late that we have been in the middle of a brutal and senseless war – a war of ideas and ideologies, where freedom has been exchanged for complacency and righteousness lost in the laz
iness of groupthink. It is a war that has shattered us in a thousand ways, some simple and some so complex that we may never understand the toll it has taken on our lives.

During the end of the summer I revisited the 2005 movie, Joyeux Noël (Christian Carion), a film about the 1914 Christmas truce that took place on the front lines of the battlefield in Europe during World War I. Though the story is fictionalized, it expresses with an almost mystical quality the spiritual transformation that took place in the hearts of the men on both sides. It represents so very well the misery of war and the power of Christ to stir individual hearts to move beyond hatred toward hope.

With the coming of the Advent season, I became keenly aware just how much this story serves as a parable of our current state of affairs and the spiritual struggles so many have endured these past two years. In one sense, the movie caused me to reflect on my failures as a believer in Christ. But in in a much richer way, it offered me hope and pointed to the eternal and incomprehensible grace that must guide our lives if we are to survive these spiritual battles and bring peace to this troubled world.

War is Personal

From the very beginning, we experience this story through the eyes of those who must struggle through it. These individuals come with their own expectations and experiences, prejudices and fears. The grander scope of politics, military goals, and moral absolutes is blurred as we are drawn into the lives of the main characters. Carion presents both the allied and German perspectives equally, as we sit in the trenches with these men, aching for relief, hoping for peace, and longing for home. We feel their fear and anxiety as they remain ever vigilant, waiting for the other side to attack. The reasons for the war matter little in these frozen fields. Rather, it is the individual needs that speak to the soldiers’ souls of eternal matters.

I know that in many ways I have had to move past my conceptions of absolutes such as good vs. evil, Right vs. Left, and freedom vs. safety, in order to grasp the truly eternal things that bind us and give our lives meaning and hope. I have had to put aside my desire to be on the winning side in order to become more deeply aware of my own spiritual emptiness and my need for wholeness and healing. I have had to accept my pain while struggling with the thousand thoughts of how my life and indeed the world itself could come unraveled at any moment. Only in the earthy reality of this spiritual trench can I begin to experience what is truly essential and needed.

From Personal to Empowered

We move into this emotional quagmire through the journeys of the main characters: Gordon, from Scotland; Audebert, from France, and Horstmayer, from Germany – all three lieutenants, lower officers who are given orders to kill the enemy, while holding their own sorrows in their hearts. They miss their loved ones and face the uncertainty that comes with command.

There is also Nikolaus Sprink and his Danish fiancée, Anna Sørensen, both famous opera singers who cling to the beauty and majesty of music and its power to rise above the horror of war as it calls the soul to higher realms.

In addition, we have two minor characters: Jonathan, a Scottish private who moves through layers of bitterness as he grieves the loss of his brother William on the battlefield; and Ponchel, personal aid to Audebert, who longs to sneak past the lines to visit his mother and once more share their tradition of drinking morning coffee together at 10:00 am.

Lastly, we have Father Palmer, a Scottish Catholic Chaplain and stretcher bearer who has joined up to watch over Jonathan and William, and to offer a message of comfort to those who feel alone and afraid. Like Christ in his incarnation, Father Palmer takes on the clothing of the ordinary men around him and serves in humility as he carries the Gospel to the broken. In many ways, he is the linchpin that holds this revolving drama together, the catalyst for the incredible spiritual change taking place that Christmas Eve. This is a man called by God to make sense of the senseless by drawing others through the darkness of war into the light that shines from the cross of Christ.

The beauty of these characters and the way Carion weaves their stories into his message remind us that both sides of this current battle we are in are made up of people like ourselves – unsettled and unsure, seeking to meet personal needs and find rest in this restless world. We all have faced tragedy, separation, and sadness. We all have been struggling with working out the orders we have been given these past two years, questioning whether what has been imposed upon us has been worth the trial. We have played our part, done our duty, and made the best of a bad situation. But, like many of the characters in the movie, some bitterness and despair have crept in, wounding our spirits and bringing us to the point of surrender. Yet, we long for things to be the way they were. We covet those connections to family and tradition that ground us and guide us home.

The Christmas Truce

This Christmas miracle unfolds with the soldiers waiting out the night in the trenches. Father Palmer enters the scene, takes up a soldier’s bagpipes and plays the old hymn, “I’m Dreaming of Home.” His fellow soldiers begin singing the lyrics with tears in their eyes as Lieutenant Gordon calls them to shout out louder and prouder for all to hear. Both the French and the Germans are deeply moved, perhaps more by the mood of the song and the fervor of the singers than by the words, which many would not understand. On the German side, Brinks counters this friendly volley by singing “Silent Night” in German, to the applause of the Scotts. Palmer then begins to pipe the tune, “Adeste Fideles” which Brinks sings with passion as he carries a lighted Christmas tree to the middle of no-man’s-land.

One gesture of peace leads to another and the three lieutenants meet by the Christmas tree and agree to a cease fire for Christmas Eve. Audebert brings champagne and the leaders toast to their newfound commonality. Slowly, the rest of the soldiers emerge from the trenches, meeting in the middle of the field, sharing chocolate and wine, showing pictures of wives and children, and even swapping personal stories. Audebert and Horstmayer find they have visited the same places in France; and Horstmayer even discovers that he has Audebert’s wallet, which was lost during a previous battle, and which he cordially returns. It is a beautiful, surreal moment, one that no one expected.

While the movie condenses many events into this one meeting, it represents what actually happened to thousands of soldiers that night. It has reminded me that Christmas is a time when the chaos should give way to calm, when we should call a cease fire to the hostilities around us, at least with regard to the individuals in our circles of influence. We may not agree with those on the other side, and we may have good reasons to stand against what they represent. But perhaps, in this season of hope, we can walk across the spiritual no-man’s-land we have created and consider that each person we meet on the middle ground is an individual like ourselves – with fears and personal failures, aspirations and life goals, unfulfilled needs and strongly-held ideas. They laugh and cry, seek meaning and make connections, and stumble along whatever journeys they are on – just as we do.

Drawn to the Light of the Incarnation

In one of the most beautiful scenes of the film, Father Palmer gathers the soldiers together to celebrate Christmas Mass. A soldier stacks three guns together to repurpose them into a podium and places it before a cross in a bombed-out cemetery. The men sit together on the ground, their colors muted in the dim light of the moon. In that moment, they are no longer enemies. They are brothers in Christ united in the sign of the cross they make as one. The language they speak is Latin. The prayers they pray join them in a sacred moment under the guidance of the Shepherd who stands in for their Savior.

At the end of the service Father Palmer asks Nikolaus Sprink to sing; but Sprink prompts Anna Sørensen to share her voice. She rises, faces the cross as she pulls down her hood, and begins singing, “Ave Maria.” As she sings, she turns toward the congregation of men, their hats removed so that they are no longer soldiers but worshipers bound together by the hope of Christmas. They are captivated by her beauty and her ethereal voice as she offers a canticle of praise, like the holy Virgin, birthing the reality of Christ’s peace into their hearts.

This should be our Christmas truce as well, one that acknowledges the evil in the world, but views our fellow human beings through the eyes of heaven, with the same Spirit that birthed the Son of God into the world. It is that Spirit that unites us in the language of love, draws us to worship the incarnational God, and calls us to put an end to the hostilities and love our enemies as Christ has loved us.

The service ends and the men slowly put on their covers, pick up their weapons, and move back toward their trenches. Despite the harsh reality before them, they know they have been changed. They understand the truce will soon end; and yet, as they look into the faces of the men on the other side, they no longer see enemies, and that truth gives them pause. Even Lieutenant Audebert confesses to Sprink and Sørensen that while he is Jewish and Christmas means nothing to him, he will never forget this night.

Father Palmer sums up the experience brilliantly as he comments later to Lieutenant Gordon:

“Tonight, these men were drawn to that altar, like a fire in the middle of winter. Even those who aren’t devout came to warm themselves. Maybe just to be together. Maybe to forget about the war.”

Lieutenant Gordon responds, “Maybe. But the war won’t forget us.”

It is only the light of Christ, shining in the darkness of this war-weary world, that will cause us to put down our weapons of words and redefine our encounters with those with whom we are opposed. The Spirit that birthed the Savior into this broken world can lead us to beat our swords into plowshares, to bridge the divide between opposing sides, and to look for the beauty that speaks itself into our lives through those moments of profound peace. That peace can only be found when we unite around those virtues that violence and war cannot destroy – faith, family, home, and holiness – and the surrender of our own hearts to the Savior’s call.

Burying the Dead, Fraternizing with the Enemy

The next day, the lieutenants meet again and broker an official truce so that each side can bury its dead. As the bodies are exchanged, the lieutenants share coffee and the men play football and cards in a good-natured competition, a symbol of their diminished tolerance for the ugliness of war. And yet, the officers take an inventory of weapons and supplies removed from the dead, a sign of the duty and danger of war once more encroaching on this delicately-forged peace.

But then, in an act of mercy, Horstmayer approaches the French and Scotts and informs them that the German army will be launching a full artillery strike on their positions. He offers them the safety of his trenches to wait out the barrage. In turn, Gordon and Audebert open their trenches to the Germans when the Allies launch a retaliatory strike against the first attack. It is Carion’s way of showing how the sacredness of their shared experience has changed these men forever. They will never see the enemy with the same eyes again.

Although it can seem like a frightening reality, we are called to let go of our hate, burying the past in a cloud of forgetting and forgiveness, as we reach out to love our enemies with the love of the One who bore the hatred of the world to save us from hell. We can declare our truce while maintaining our principles and a heavenly perspective. We can listen to the stories of others, looking deeper into their hearts as we offer a place of safety where all can experience wholeness and peace.

The Consequences of the Truce

The film draws to a close with each group experiencing the fallout from their unconventional truce. Brinks and Sørensen decide to surrender to the French rather than be separated when they return to Berlin where Brinks will be arrested for returning to the trenches without permission. Letters Sørensen is carrying from the soldiers are intercepted by the French and the nature of the truce is uncovered.
Father Palmer, away from the front with the wounded, is greeted by his bishop, who informs him that he is being sent back to his parish in Scotland while his battalion will be disbanded. He is sorely rebuked by the Bishop as a shameful disappointment and told he should consider resigning from the priesthood. The Bishop then preaches a fiery anti-German sermon to the replacement troops, telling them that the Germans are godless and inhumane, and that the soldiers must kill every one of them as part of God’s holy war against Germany. At that moment, Father Palmer removes his cross and places it by the bed of a fallen soldier as he leaves.

The Scottish soldiers are dressed down by a major who has taken over. They see what looks like a German soldier crossing no-man’s-land and the major orders the men to shoot. Most shoot into the air, but the bitter Jonathan shoots down the man. We learn then that the man is Ponchel, Audebert’s aid, who, with the help of the Germans, had crossed through the lines to visit his mother for one last cup of coffee together. With his dying breath, he informs Audebert that he has a son named Henri.
Audebert is visited by his father, a French General, and informed that he will be sent to Verdun as punishment for his fraternization with the enemy. Audebert makes no apologies for his actions; and though at odds with his father, manages to tell him that he is now a grandfather. The General, broken by this revelation, says that both men should survive the war for Henri.

Lastly, we see the Germans onboard a box car, bound for the Eastern Front. The German Crown Prince enters the scene. He expresses disgust for the unit and tells Horstmayer that he does not deserve the metals he wears. However, as the Crown Prince turns to leave, Horstmayer and his troops, in a sign of solidarity with their French and Scottish friends, begin humming the familiar hymn, “I’m Dreaming of Home” as the train heads away and the film comes to a close.

There are indeed consequences for the choice to call a truce, to pray for enemies, and to seek to make them friends in Christ. We may be rejected by worldly authorities or suffer the loss of privilege or position. We may lose home or family, experience disillusionment or despondency, and even come to the point of abandoning our faith. But the rewards of choosing to see the world through the eyes of Christ will remain with us like a badge of honor that no one can take away.

At first, I felt anguished when I saw Father Palmer leave his cross and walk away. He seemed to be the saddest casualty of the war. The one who felt he had been called by God to the battlefield to celebrate his greatest Mass was sent home in disgrace, essentially branded a misguided and apostate priest, and told to renounce his calling. But I choose to see things in a different way. I believe Father Palmer did not give up his faith, but instead held to the true core of faith, uncorrupted by the horror or war, partisan politics, or unrestrained arrogance. This is the faith that overcomes the hatred of enemies, clings to the cross, cherishes the sacred traditions, and worships in the purity of that heavenly universal form that flows from the broken heart of Christ.  

Despite what has happened over the past two years, despite the changes that have come, and despite the uncertainty that the future holds, Christmas remains our eternal hope. The incarnation has made possible the power within to call a truce from the hostilities of war, to seek common ground with opposing forces, and to stand united under the banner of truth that transcends all human barriers and delivers us from despair. May we choose to love as the incarnate Son of God loved, pouring out our lives in service and surrender to his cause. May we move with grace as we face these earthly wars, until we experience eternal peace with Christ forever in heaven.