By Osondu Ahirika
Have you heard that true life Xmas truce story before? It was the most memorable Christmas eve ever, after the first one, during which, the choir of Angels sang. I shall come to that shortly. First though, let's share the story of how enemy armies left their fox holes and trenches to sing Xmas carols.
It was a cold morning 100 years ago. Thousands of British, Belgian and French soldiers put down their rifles, stepped out of their trenches and spent Christmas mingling with their German enemies along the Western front.
It was a moment of superb miracle. Few months into a war that would eventually claim over 15 million lives, on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day of 1914, peace happened. Pope Benedict XV, who took office that September, had originally called for a Christmas armistice, an idea that was officially rejected.
Up until date, there is no oral or written consensus on how it began. Fact remains that, some two-thirds of troops — about 100,000 people — are believed to have participated in, what became a legendary ceasefire.
To stay fair, the truce began with carol singing from the trenches on Christmas Eve “First the Germans would sing one of their carols and then the allied forces would sing one of theirs. Then when the Carol, ‘O Come, All Ye Faithful’ rang out from the allied forces camp, the Germans immediately joined in singing the same hymn to the Latin words, 'Adeste Fideles'. It was a most extraordinary thing – two nations both singing the same carol in the middle of a war.”
A chronicled account reads thus :"The next morning, in some places, German soldiers emerged from their trenches, calling out “Merry Christmas” in English. Allied soldiers came out warily to greet them. In others, Germans held up signs reading “You no shoot, we no shoot.” Over the course of the day, troops exchanged gifts of cigarettes, food, buttons and hats. The Christmas truce also allowed both sides to finally bury their dead comrades, whose bodies had lain for weeks on “no man’s land,” the ground between opposing trenches.'' The truce may not have been universal, but it was a defining moment of what the power of Xmas is all about.
That brings me to that first Xmas eve as recorded in the Holy Bible, Luke 2 to be precise. It reads in part from verse 8, "Now there were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. And behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were greatly afraid. Then the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be the sign to you: You will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a Manger. ”What happens next will interest you and gives motivation for my subject matter in this peace. Continuing from verse 13 of the same aforesaid scripture, it reads, "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, goodwill toward men!”
The key words for me are, 'Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace goodwill towards men. It was that goodwill and peace encoded in the good news of Xmas that was made manifest in the thick of bloody warfare, that night of December 24, and into the dawn of the 25th in 1914.
That goodwill and peace, is what the government and good people of Akwa Ibom State engender and spread through the institutionization of the annual Christmas Carol, which happens again, on December 22, 2017 with the theme: Emmanuel, God is with us .
At such a time as this, when Nigeria is at war with itself on many fronts. IPOB and the Operation Python Dance in the Southeast, Crocodile smile in the South South, Operation Lafiya dole and Boko Haram in the North East, with the unrestrained mass killings perpetrated by the militia wing of herdsmen in the middle belt and Southern Kaduna and other parts of the South South and South East, it is trite to spread the message of peace and goodwill towards all men from the bowels of the State named after God.
Folks', and where will you be on the set date? This is a gathering that will blur partisan differences, blot out ethnic, lingual or cultural prejudices, eliminate hate speech, ethnocentric agitations and all those issues that divide us. Christmas Carol is a universal language. O come let us Him, Jesus Christ the Lord.
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