More than two thousand years ago a baby was born in a remote village to a couple who had traveled under the command of their Roman oppressors to be counted and taxed. This baby grew into a man whose life was a wonder and power to those who knew him. Stories of miracles surrounded him. Words of insight and wisdom were shared with great crowds and the small group of followers who saw him as the One promised by God to be the deliverer of God’s people. Love and freedom seemed to mark his existence. The sick, the lonely, the suffering, those shoved to the edge of society found him to be a source of healing and of peace. He gave love, he gave himself, he gave liberty and he gave them abundantly—wastefully, extravagantly. Those whose lives he touched were never the same.
They saw in his life the Source of all life that expanded their’s. They saw in his love the Source of love and the hope of their own fulfillment. It was the kind of transforming essence that they had never known before. In him they saw God’s glory. In him they experienced a transforming love.
Tonight we gather to celebrate this story—this life. We express this joy through music, through poetry, through beauty and light, through giving gifts and giving ourselves to others. This season leaves strong imprints on our hearts—for when the love and the acceptance and the forgiveness is experienced, when we become whole, free, and affirmed people, the heavens do sing “Glory to God in the Highest.”
This story is one that has touched the hearts of millions.
Columbia is a beautiful country in South America, north of Ecuador that has been embroiled in a civil war for more than 50 years. Many people living in that country today cannot remember a time when there was not violence, when people did not have to flee their homes, when it was safe to go to the market or step outside after dark. But the leaders of the country were determined to stop this endless war. They had tried military strategies, they had tried political strategies. They decided to try something new. The government working with an advertising agency set out to set peace in motion through the hope of Christmas. Talking to soldiers who had left the rebel group, FARC The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia—People’s Army (Spanish: Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, they discovered was that these people were “as much a prisoner of their life as the people they held for ransom.”[1]
So using the power of Christmas- the time when people’s hearts are opened to the possibility of peace and forgiveness and reconciliation–when there is a belief that anything is possible—they began offering grace to these people. They first turned nine gigantic trees near where the guerillas encamped into Christmas trees. With the help of Special Forces soldiers, they strung these trees with Christmas light and between them hung a large sign that said, “If Christmas can come to the jungle, you can come home.”
They must have felt like those shepherds on that first night—startled and perhaps terrified. But 330 guerillas, roughly 5% of the rebel force at that time demobilized. They came out of the jungle and gave up.
But the jungle is vast. The question was how to reach more of the soldiers living in this immense isolated area. Then they learned that the rivers were the highways where guerillas traveled and where they often recruited new soldiers. They launched Operation Rivers of Light. They asked people in nearby villages to send messages and gifts to the guerillas. These items were placed inside capsules that glowed in the dark. They were floated down the river. 7,000 lights were sent down the river hoping that they would be received by the fighters. As a result of these messages and lights one demobilization occurred every six hours.
Still there were many more soldiers to convince to give up the fight, to stop the war and come home. They found 27 mothers of soldiers fighting for FARC. The mothers gave them photos of their sons and daughters as young children that only they would have and they could recognize. At Christmas, fliers with these pictures and messages from the mothers were placed all over the jungle. The message was “Before you were a guerilla, you were my child. So come home because I will always be waiting for you.” 218 people with this campaign gave up their weapon and came home and stopped shooting.
These campaigns, set during the time of Christmas, reminded people who had been fighting in a war for most of their lives, that it was time to rejoin their families, that it was time for peace. Though the road to peace in Columbia is still a long road to be traveled, since the beginning of this program, 17,000 guerillas have given up their arms and come home. A new peace agreement was reached on November 12 and FARC guerillas have begun to disband under the United Nations supervision.
The message of Christmas is that the world is being transformed—it is being restored through the hope born in a baby in Bethlehem. This hope is the power that calls us to live together in love and peace and compassion and forgiveness.
At Christmas we are enlivened to be the light that is sent out to remind others that they are loved and cherished by God. At Christmas we are the faces that are called to be signs of welcome to invite people home to a place where they are recognized and generously received as God’s own child.
Christmas makes a place big enough for us all to gather as we look in wonder at the glory of this child.
As those who follow this baby, our call is clear, “Come let us adore him.” Come let us adore him by living fully, loving extravagantly, by recognizing the power of this story of love to transform the world. May the good news of great joy find its place in your heart this night and may it inspire you to be bold enough to share it with the world.
[1] http://www.cbsnews.com/news/60-minutes-colombia-after-civil-war-lara-logan/