Nicole’s e-Pistle
December 10, 2025
Greetings, Friends, and may the peace of Christ be with you all!
This is Week 2 of Advent, when we celebrate the promise of peace in God’s kingdom. It can sometimes seem naïve to talk of peace with the state the world is in. In fact, I wonder if there has ever been a Sunday in Advent when someone lit the peace candle and spoke the comforting liturgy and the whole entire world was actually at peace. Of course, the season of Advent offers us the hope of peace to come.
On Sunday, I read Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem “Christmas Bells” to you all. He wrote of peace on earth during a time when the American Civil War continued to rage between the North and the South. Peace was elusive. War has a tendency to cast shadows over the big picture in world history. Yet, I cannot help thinking of another instance when the hope of peace was made manifest during a time of extreme destruction and loss of life.
On Sunday evening, we sang Silent Night by candlelight in the sanctuary, both in English and in German. The event that comes to my mind is another instance of people singing Silent Night together, but that time, roughly 100,000 British, Belgian, and German troops during World War I stopped fighting on Christmas Eve, ventured out of their entrenchments, and shared in their common humanity and love of the Christ child. In dozens of accounts all over the Western front, Germans and Allied troops met cautiously in no man’s land to sing Christmas carols, exchange small gifts of rations, and by some accounts, even enjoy a game or two of soccer.
Many consider the Christmas Truce of 1914 to be a miracle – a sign of God’s reign of peace in the midst of war. Yet, according to an article written by TIME magazine, for the men in the trenches, it was a form of subversion, “when the men on the ground decided they were not fighting the same war as their superiors.” In some cases, no man’s land was only 100 feet of space between enemy forces. The men could hear each other’s laughs and screams. They could smell food cooking in enemy camps as the wind shifted. In other words, there was no denying the humanity of the men they were meant to kill. This was (and is) a dangerous thought for a soldier to have. In fact, later in 1930, a British soldier commented that “if we had been left to ourselves there would never have been another shot fired.”
Peace is often seen as a threat to those who desire power and control. Yes, we have the promise of peace in God’s kingdom, when, as Isaiah prophesies, “The wolf shall live with the lamb; the leopard shall lie down with the kid; the calf and the lion will feed together, and a little child shall lead them.” Yet, we also have the opportunity to subvert the powers of the earth that seek to gain power for themselves through violent means. We have the responsibility to peacefully resist the wrong being done in this world.
This is not to say that we do not need a military. In 1914, a Corporal of the 16th Bavarians spoke out publicly against the Christmas Truce, saying, “Such a thing should not happen in wartime… Have you no German sense of honor?” His name was Adolph Hitler. It would take another entire war to stop the atrocities he inflicted on millions of human souls. War is sometimes a necessary evil when policing the nations of the world.
The question is, how can each of us, in our own lives and communities, be agents of peace in the face of violence and hatred? How can we share the message of God’s love in the world as we await the fulfillment of our prayer, “Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven”?
Friends, my prayer for each of you, as well as for the nations and peoples throughout the world, is that you will find peace today – a moment of reprieve from the chaos of the season. May it strengthen you on your journey through this life.
Deep Peace to you all,
