Have you done your Christmas shopping yet? The countdown to the big day is well under way, and to the delight of the retailers, we are constantly reminded how many shopping days there are still to go. Those same retailers have been enticing us with their special Christmas television adverts too. This year’s offering from John Lewis has drawn lots of attention with its cute little boy and even cuter penguin, but if anything, perhaps the Sainsbury’s commercial has caused more conversation, marking as it does the centenary of the Christmas Day truce in the beginning of World War I.
Made in conjunction with the Royal British Legion it is based upon the football match that took place between British and German soldiers in ‘no-man’s land’ on Christmas Day in 1914. Though there would be a far more important football match between the English and the Germans fifty years later, the Christmas Day game has gone down in history. Amidst all the carnage of war, especially that particular war, the idea that men could put down their guns and share an hour in their common humanity has always been inspirational. This retailer is hoping the story inspires us to part with our cash!
The first Christmas, the real Christmas story, is also about peace breaking into war. The incarnation of the Son of God took place in a time of military upheaval too, as the Roman Empire sought to establish its stranglehold on the known world by imposing the tax and census which took Joseph and Mary from Nazareth to Bethlehem. There, amidst poverty and squalor, a baby was born, a real helpless baby, but One who was also ‘Mighty God’ (Isa 9:6). With his birth, and with his life, death and resurrection, human history changes completely. Two millennia later we are still celebrating His birth.
One of the other titles given to the baby Jesus by Isaiah seven centuries before was ‘Prince of Peace’. That reflects the reason why He came into the world. The Bible tells us that you and I are enemies of a holy God. That is because of our sin – the things that we say, think and do that are not perfect in God’s evaluation. Because we are sinners, a state of enmity exists between God and us. That enmity has consequences far worse than those when countries fall out with each other. It means we will be eternally separated from God, and shut out of Heaven.
Jesus came into this war-torn world to reconcile God to man. He brought peace by living a life of perfect obedience to God’s law, the life that we cannot live. That life, which was spent preaching the good news of the Kingdom, healing the sick, and transforming the lives of individuals, was snuffed out as He was taken by wicked hands and crucified on a cross outside of Jerusalem. But that death was God’s plan. It was Christ’s innocent blood which pays the price for our redemption. God’s charge on us is paid in full by Him. We can now be at peace with God. That peace doesn’t just last for a day, as it did in 1914, but for eternity.
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