Christmas
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Come to Bethlehem and see
Him whose praise the angels sing.
Come adore on bended knee,
Christ the Lord, the newborn king.
~From
“Angels We Have Heard on High”
Let’s go to Bethlehem.
When we travel there today, we go miles from Jerusalem along winding roads, through a dry landscape dotted with fields of olive trees. In the summer it’s just baking in the sun.
And eventually we reach the small city of Bethlehem, whose name means House of Bread. The point of the pilgrimage is to touch the spot that marks the place of Jesus’ birth. And we might think he was born in a stable or some kind of out-building behind an inn. But people who study the Bible say he was most likely born in a cave, because in that part of the world, that’s where the shepherds and their flocks found shelter in inclement weather. That’s where the mangers were.
And so that’s where we’re going now, in Bethlehem. Down into the earth.
We go into the dimly lit, huge 6th Century basilica of the Nativity, because it’s built right over the Nativity cave. We descend a staircase, down into the dark, and get to a small room that opens out from the cave—maybe it’s 10 feet across by 15 feet long. The rock walls of the cave are still there—we can see it’s really a cavity in the earth. We stand in line behind all the other pilgrims in order eventually to reach the place where the holy birth is said to have happened. It’s recessed into the earthen wall way at the end of the basement.
One by one, we bend down and we kiss the large silver star that’s been put over the birthing place.
Now, I thought when I was there that this might feel kind of cheesy, kind of kitschy, but actually it was really touching. It brings us to the heart of things—the place where the Word made flesh entered into the world. And it was very moving for me. I was surprised that I wept from the wonder of it.
And then we stand up again and turn away, and the first thing we see is a painting on the wall of the Virgin nursing her child. That surely drives the physicality of the incarnation home. Jesus was a needy, hungry, cold little baby who needed loving care.
He was born into the world in the dark of night, in the dark of a cave, inside the earth. Come to think of it, the beginnings and endings of his life happened in caves.
First, he was born in the cave at Bethlehem. And then he was buried in the tomb, in a cave hewn out of the rock outside Jerusalem. And he was raised back to life from that dark cave, back into the light.
God knows the darkness. God has been nakedly vulnerable in the darkness in the weakness of birth and the astonishing powerlessness of death. God is present even in the depths of our own darkness—into every depression we may suffer, every single terrible loss we may grieve, every time we feel abandoned by family members or friends, every health challenge and frustration we pass through. God is there. Jesus knows what it’s like to be in the most significant and terror-filled darkness. He’s not afraid of it.
That’s something for us to remember.
So now let’s return to Bethlehem again, and come up from the grotto of the Nativity. We walk through the immense basilica and take a look at the mosaics in the flooring, preserved in patches from 1500 years ago. And we go out into the square.
Nativity Square in Bethlehem is big and open, and like everywhere else in this country it’s blindingly bright outside, as the buff-colored stone pavements reflect the brilliant sun. And, again, it’s really hot, and the air is very dry.
And soon we’re accosted by any number of poor men, hawking touristy tchotchkes – olivewood crosses, Arab-style headdress scarves, little bracelets made of cheap wooden beads strung on elastic cords. It’s a feature of the culture in the Middle East—men whose income depends on the generosity of tourists; men who cannot find other employment, because it doesn’t exist. Men from one of the three local refugee camps who traveled to Bethlehem that day with the hopes of making a few shekels.
The Christ Child was born in this land. It’s a land of geophysical contrasts between mountains and rift valleys; a land of historical clashes between peoples of different faiths; a land of social, economic, and political disparities between “haves” and “have-nots.”
And we are challenged to see and to serve Jesus in the faces of these his have-nots. For he has taught us that when we serve “the least of these” we are serving him.
Our vocation as Christians is to find the divine hidden in plain sight in the poor, in the oppressed, in the dirty, in the oppressors, in the terrorists, in the privileged and the rich, in our own families. And to love them / and serve them / and pray them back to God.
For inside every heart, maybe really deep inside, maybe so far inside that it’s encased in so much grime that we cannot even see it, inside each heart is a bit of the divine, a bit of the Christ.
May the light of the Christ Child grow within the dark places of our own hearts and souls. May he help us to struggle with finding him in our own darkness. May he help us wrestle with the questions of WHO is my neighbor, and what is holy.
May he push us out of our comfortable, romantic notions populated with sweet angels and lovely stable tableaux, and into the reality of cold and dark and dirty and deprived. May we find him in people on all sides of disputes and in all political persuasions. May we find him even in the difficult people we deal with day to day.
“Come to Bethlehem and see Him / whose praise the angels sing.”
Amen.
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