Christmas message from 1962

I was 10 years old and living with my family in Northern Virginia during what has been characterized as "the Cuban Missile Crisis." That event, which took place over a tense period of days in October, centered around discovery by the U.S. that the USSR was preparing missile sites in Cuba. In the midst of the "Cold War" following WWII, young President John F. Kennedy took action including the order of Navy ships to the region. Ultimately Nikita Khrushchev of the USSR announced his nation would abandon its Cuban project. History has shown that we came precariously close to a nuclear war. As a young sailor in WWII my father had seen firsthand the awesome power of nuclear weapons. He had flown over Japan in the wake of a pair of nuclear bombs dropped on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. My father's Christmas message as a guest preacher a few weeks later used the 1962 missile crisis to reflect on our mortality, and the gracious invitation by our Father to accept His Son as our Savior so that death might "lose its sting." That message follows:

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life. John 3:16

Never has peace seemed so infinitely impossible, as men understand peace. Never have men been so apprehensive about the threat to their way of life, even life itself. And never has there been such good reason.

Men without Christ have been able to celebrate His birthday in their own way in past years, and in their own way enjoy a kind of peace that for the most part avoided physical danger. Now, for anyone without Christ, some of the glitter is gone and satisfaction formerly content with earthbound pleasure is less than enough.

And now, happily, there still peals, as ever present and eternal as God Himself, the joyous gospel story of the gift of Jesus to all mankind … and with Him, peace! Not world peace, necessarily, but a peace that passes all understanding.

Many have missed the tremendous truth of the Christmas story for all of their lives, while celebrating the first telling of it so many years ago by angels at the hamlet of Bethlehem. In times of adversity, of mental anguish and consternation for what may happen to self and to loved ones if the powers of hate and greed that pace half the world should suddenly turn and begin the holocaust of murder and destruction that every responsible person knows is possible … in times like these, many are more inclined to stop and ponder the truth of that Christmas message, and to inquire whether it affords a way out.

That answer that comes ringing out of Heaven itself is: “Yes, beloved soul! Christ was born to die that you might live.”

There is salvation in a look, not at the tender manger scene alone, but beyond to Golgotha, where hung Christ the Savior of mankind. A look to Him, to the risen, victorious Savior, and a sincere plea for help, brings the Christmas peace, the peace that tells that soul that come what may, there will be a new Heaven and a new earth … and all of this terror will have passed away.

At this season each in his or her own way ponders the blessings of our land, of our way of life. We are warmed anew with good fellowship, with giving of gifts, of sharing with the less fortunate; with the singing of hymns and carols, and the reading and hearing once more of the Christmas story.

Here let us pause … the hearing of the Christmas story … this year let us earnestly read and hear it and not let it go until we possess the peace it speaks of. It can be had. When it is prayerfully read and God’s Spirit is permitted to carry us further into the wealth and treasure of His word, there will come peace. Not immediately between nations, but one by one, the hearts of men receive it and hold fast and begin to live it and tell it to others, and its power works miracle after miracle.

Every American is thankful for those who meet at the parlay tables, and those who give their lives to the cause of peace. Many of us pray for their success … but knowing that even sincere men can fail, may we turn individually to God and seek His peace within us first … and then turn the love of Christ and all its power to as much true peace as there remains time for.

Will you believe that there are people who do not worry much about the prospect of atomic death without warning? There is a way to a sure confidence that were death to come this day, life will have just begun. Ways and means of waging war and inflicting destruction change and become more terrible, but men do not change in their basic nature, loves, loyalties, fears and hopes, because God has planted in the soul of every man a hunger to know God and peace. The desire is often perverted and many die trying alone to find their destiny. How tragic this is so. Still, Christ stands with open arms and calls confused, twisted and lost men and women to His peace, His salvation for now and all eternity.

Let us pray. Dear Heavenly Father, let this be the last hopeless Christmas for all who hear, and the first truly joyous Christmas for as many as yet wander apart from Your peace and assurance that life was given to all this day in Bethlehem if we will but take the gift of Jesus in whose name we pray. Amen.

Sermon by Buehl Berentson