The Runners of the Western Front

On November 11, 1918, at 5:10 in the morning, the Armistice was signed in a railway carriage in the Forest of Compiegne. But the cease-fire would not take effect until 11:00 a.m. For nearly six hours, runners sprinted through the mud and frost of the Western Front, carrying the most beautiful message the trenches had heard in four years: the war is over.

Private Will Bird of the Nova Scotia Regiment described the moment the word reached his unit. Men who had not smiled in months stood blinking, unable to process it. Then one soldier began to laugh. Then another. Then weeping broke out — not from sorrow, but from a joy so unfamiliar it frightened them. Along miles of scarred earth, from Ypres to Verdun, signal flares arced into the gray sky. Soldiers climbed out of their trenches and stood upright for the first time in years, no longer afraid.

The news did not change because it traveled slowly. The Armistice was already signed at dawn. But it meant nothing to the men still ducking bullets until a messenger arrived to proclaim it.

Isaiah saw this same truth centuries before Compiegne. The Lord's salvation is accomplished — complete, decisive, irreversible. But how beautiful are the feet of those who carry that news to people still crouching in their own trenches, not yet knowing that the battle is already won. The Almighty has bared His holy arm. Every end of the earth will see it. Someone just has to run the message forward.