Advent Devotional - December 9, 2014

”Now to the Lord sing praises / All you within this place / And with true love and brotherhood / Each other now embrace”

-God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen

For a few brief hours on Christmas Day 1914, German and British soldiers along the front lines of World War I held an impromptu ceasefire. Sworn enemies emerged from their trenches, shook hands in no-man’s land, and celebrated Christmas in whatever meager way they could. It was a moving moment among an otherwise horrific war. Yet the sad reality is that the ceasefire ended. The moment of shared humanity proved to be just that: a moment, with no lasting effect beyond a few photographs and sentimental memories.

But what if a moment could fundamentally change relationships between people who otherwise would have no reason to love each other? What if something could happen that united people across all boundaries?

Such a thing has happened! Apart from Christ, we tend to look on those who are different than us as “other,” as people who should at the least be avoided, and perhaps even attacked. But at the cross, Christ broke down the dividing wall of hostility that might separate Christians (Ephesians 2:14). “So then, you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God” (Ephesians 2:19). As the lyrics above show, we who are Christ’s can have “true love and brotherhood” that goes beyond a mere moment, beyond simple common interests, beyond national identity, beyond ethnic makeup. In the world there are a myriad of reasons we should be divided, but there is one greater reason that we are in reality united. Because Christ came and died, we no longer pick up arms against each other, but embrace one another as brothers and sisters in Christ forevermore. As we gather and sing together this Advent season, we are not simply singing as a collection of individual voices. Instead, we sing as one unified church, one body. Let us rejoice that our unity in song is possible because Christ has made us one through His gospel.