The 1914 Christmas Truce is one of the most well-known instances of Christmas affecting earthly history (with the obvious exception of the Incarnation itself). As the First World War raged across Europe, and bodies littered the Western front, British, French, and German troops agreed to a temporary ceasefire over the Christmas period. Tens of thousands of men put down weapons for a few short hours to exchange conversation, cigars, and songs, sung in the tongues of many nations by men whose cultural backgrounds could not have been more different. One 19-year old soldier, Henry Williamson, wrote about the truce to his mother with the following:
“Yesterday the British & Germans met and shook hands in the Ground between the trenches. All day Xmas day, and as I write. Marvelous, isn’t it?”
It’s easy to look at a moment like that and remark about the fragility of the earthly powers that wage war — as long as you don’t think about the fact that, less than a day later, those young men who shook hands and drank together would once again be throwing grenades into each other’s bunkers. Earthly Christmas power? It lasted maybe thirty hours.
What does the Incarnation actually have to say to Americans in 2025? We’re no longer at war against armed enemies (at least not yet, and at least not at scale), but we are in full-scale conflict against a spirit of glaring apathy to the fate of the oppressed, against totalitarian impulses in our politics, and against moral relativism that’s permeated every one of our institutions of meaning. So, maybe not so different from the world into which Jesus descended, in humble obscurity, to share our humanity.
Within the Christmas story, I’ve often thought that Herod is the most under-studied character in the drama. In his own way, he grasps the reality of Christ’s coming more than many who encountered the Messiah on Earth — even more than the disciples at times. Herod is a fascinating character, because it’s his tyranny, and deeply corrosive view of people and power, that leads him to the truth about Jesus. The coming of Jesus was not some side issue or minor inconvenience that could be brushed away with paperwork or press conferences. The coming of Jesus, despite having none of the cultural hallmarks of authority, was unmistakable power. It was the Kingdom of God about to smash into the kingdom of man.
As my boss and mentor Jerry Bowyer points out:
“The good news for the world is that the arrival of the Messiah would bring justice. The bad news for Jerusalem was that the arrival of the Messiah would bring justice. The Herodian regime was based on economic exploitation, which means it represents a zero sum game mentality, and that led him, as it has led many, many tyrants after, to turn to genocide.”
Others have noted the cultural parallels between Herod’s kingdom and our modern world. Christ tells His followers that “this is My body, given for you.” Whether under Herod’s regime or in a Planned Parenthood backroom, the demand is the opposite: this is your body, taken for me. It’s no wonder that Herod slaughters all the innocent children in Bethlehem — in a world where fallen visions of power are all that matter, it was the only logical choice.
The Christmas story isn’t powerlessness confronting power. The Christmas story is divine power, and a divine vision of greatness, confronting, overcoming, and completely emptying a worldly, humanistic vision of greatness. For the humble, it’s vindicating. For the proud, it’s terrifying. For young, ambitious, success-driven people like most of the people reading this, it’s a reminder that God and His work evince a different vision of greatness than the idol many of us (not you, us), have set up in our hearts.
I live in a small town about a half hour from Butler, Pennsylvania. It’s a perfectly fine small town, but it’s ordinary. It’s mundane in many ways. It’s not an economic powerhouse, a hub of capital markets, or a capstone of manufacturing. Most people only know about Butler because of its connection to people and places far more notable and consequential. This is not the sort of place you would imagine earth-shakingly significant things to come from. It’s not New York or Washington or Dubai. And yet everywhere you look, you will meet people engaged in work that God considers great, and important, and of eternal value to Him and His kingdom.
This doesn’t mean that the highlights of culture and politics don’t matter — far from it. It means that the highlights and front page moments of our lives, in the ideas space, in the academic world, and in the arena of cultural apologetics need to be filtered through God’s vision of greatness to be considered truly powerful.
