O Little Town of Bethlehem

"O little town of Bethlehem

how still we see thee lie...."

I am no good at politics.  I don't know enough to comment effectively.  So I cannot tell you precisely why this wall has been built in the middle of Bethlhem.  

But I can show this picture.

I am not sure how to explain it or to sugar coat it.  It divides Bethlehem and cuts it off from Jerusalem.  In my mind, Bethlehem has always been far from Jerusalem.  

I have been wrong.  

It is maybe 5 or 6 miles.  And they are cut off from one another.  The birthplace of Jesus cut off from Jerusalem.

Bethlehem Bible College hosted an international conference last month called "Christ at the Checkpoint."  They invite our church each year they have it.  The premise:  if Jesus were born today he would have to go through checkpoints.  Joseph and Mary would have to go through checkpoints (some say as many as 300) from Nazareth to Bethelehem (which is pretty far it turns out).  So what should the church do or say in light of this?  What would happen to the church if Jesus had been detained at a check point?   

The truth is that no American, including us, knows what it is like to live with such walls in the middle of our neighborhoods.  We don't have checkpoints to go to work.  Neither do with live with Israel's security and safety threats.  Or with Israel's memories of the Holocaust.  It is not our reality.

But the walls in the middle of the city of the nativity of the Savior?  6,000 people a day go through the checkpoint at these walls - lining up at 4 AM.  Some days it takes hours.  Like the walls that block the road to Jericho, these broke my heart.  How can these walls be part of any effective solution for peace in this troubled land?

Love wins?  I believe as much.  May it be so in Bethlehem.

(A widow at the Lutheran Church in Bethlehem.  This window commemorates John 6, "I am the bread of life.")

We visited the Lutheran church, which also hosts a small university for Bethlehemites.  It was amazing.  Founded in the 1890's, it is the one Protestant church in Bethelehem.  Years ago, they switched over to Arabic language services which is the language of the Palestinian people here in Bethlehem.  Thus the Arabic in the dome of the church.  Just a lovely, lovely place.

The woman who gave us the tour (the lead Pastor is in the States) said that she prayed for peace and knew it would come, because God had come to Bethlehem once and given the world the gift of peace in the Prince of Peace.  Keep in mind, she has seen tanks roll by her church.  She has swept up after the people in the streets and the army went to blows.  So she has seen what happens when peace is shattered.  And so her deep belief in the Prince of Peace is not casual.  Her words were not empty.

One more thing about the Lutheran Church.  During an expansion project, they found a 2nd Century Cave under the church.  A cave that was a home.  It was replete with cooking instruments, etc..

Here is a poor picture of it.  Bethlehem is riddled with these caves.  This is likely the kind of cave Joseph and Mary stayed in during Jesus' birth.  It was not this cave where Jesus was born.  The cave is elsewhere.  Here is what to note in this picture.  See the steps and how it rises?  That little rise was the "upper room" in a 1st century cave.  Here their cave is set for hosting meals - some church groups want to come and have an authentic supper the way Jesus might have had a meal and so the cave is prepped for this activity.  But you might get the idea.  It is this type of structure that Jesus likely spent his life eating, sleeping, and growing up in.  Note:  as these caves are found, there are mangers carved inside of the doors of nearly all of them.  This is true of this one too.  The manger so that they animals who were brought in on cold winter nights could eat.  Thus the archaeological theory goes that mangers were readily available for Mary to rest her child in the overcrowded little city.

It is believed that Bethlehem had 300 - 500 people living in it at the time of Jesus birth.  For many, many reasons, it is believed that Jesus was born in a meager and simple house (perhaps like the one above) likely owned by realtives (Luke uses "inn" -- as in no "room at the inn."  But there are some translation issues there that I will skip over at this point in time).

The oldest continuing church and congregation in the world is the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, which like the churches in Jerusalem, is built directly over the cave and carved out manger that bibically, historically, and archaeologially fit the criteria to be the place of Jesus' birth.

It is an incredible structure.  Old.  Falling down around itself.

This is why there is a major renovation project ongoing.  Much of it is being restored and refurbished.

We waited in another massive line to see the manger, the little room, the meager, dug out home where Jesus is said to have been born.  And I think that on the balance of the evidence, if it wasn't exactly here, it was very near.

I didn't have any of my pictures from the the journey down into the birth site turn out very well.

Peter (the guide) gathered the group up and we sang some Christmas carols together only feet away from the area of the little stone manger.  Singing felt pretty good.  And felt right.  A good and simple way to say thanks to God for the incarnate birth of Christ.

One of the reasons people think the Church of the Nativity is authentic is because of St. Jerome.  St. Jerome died in Bethlehem in 420 AD - he had made this church his home.  So dating back into the 300's one of the geniuses of the faith was an eye witness to the stewardship of the site.

The above photo is of the cave just adjacent to the meager cave of the nativity.  This is the original tomb of St. Jerome, and he was buried in the room where he translated the Bible into Latin, from Greek and Hebrew. That's right:  the guy who translated the authoritative version of the Bible -- the authoritative version for more than 1,000 years, worked in this very room.  

Look at the plaque.  Here lies St. Jerome, "Presbyteri et ecclesiae doctoris."  This means elder and church doctor of course.  How about the word Presbyteri in there?  Our guide saw it immediate, and as he does not know many Presbyterians, we had a discussion about theology and ecclesiology in the tomb and study of St. Jerome.  Are you kidding me?  My inner theologian was smiling from ear to ear.

I geeked out a little bit.

We visited a shop owned by the grandson of the man who first described the Dead Sea Scrolls to the world.  And this jar is the actual jar in which the Isaiah scrolls were found.  That is unreal, really.  

I think our group has done really well.  We have seen many of the stones of the bible, of the ancient world, and of the time of Jesus.  We have greater grasp on what it may have looked like, felt like, and been like.  Ultimately any trip here will be the question - did these stories look and feel the way I thought they would?  That is the point of pilgrimage and study.  I'll never read Sea of Galilee, Mountain of Olives, Gethsemane, or many others again and not think of this week.

The ground may be different today.   But the distances are the same.  With a little prayer and imagination you can almost see how it might have all looked and transpired.

And that is good.

It is a treasure to walk in the footsteps of grace.  A real blessing to cover the earth Jesus and his disciples once covered.  I leave tomorrow with my imagination expanded, and my love of the stories transformed.  What a gift!

We also saw the living stones of this place.  The Muslim men praying at the Temple Mount.  The Jordanian shepherds.  The Jews praying at the Western Wall.  The gracious Palestinians.  The passionate Israelis.  And their collective future is very much in doubt, very much up in the air.

Again, I don't know everything about the walls we have seen, and the flagging peace process.  But I do know this.  Should the living stones of this place find no peace?  Should the beautiful and mysterious Jews and Palestinians who live here and work here side by side, but go home to deeply segregated lives, should these living stones be able to find no peace?  Then the day will come when we who seek the ancient stones will not be able to see and touch and walk in this place.  That would be a two front tragedy.  

A tragedy that peace had failed.

And a tragedy that we are cut off from the story of our faith.

As one of our speakers said, "That's our history, our collective history out there in the Jordan River, we have to both protect it and share it!"

It has been spiritually deeping and humbling to see the places where our Lord was.  They are real and it is powerful to see the the geography of the stories first hand.

You know the line from the prophets, "he shalll be called wonderful counselor, mighty God, prince of peace."  May there be peace.  Deep peace.  The peace of God, which passes all understanding.  May my prayer be that the sons and daughters of God, the lovely and amazing people we have met on both sides of the borders, and the people who care about this place --  may we all be found by that peace.

Peace enough that the ancient stones and ancient stories might live on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on.....  

Addendum:

Tomorrow we head home after a visit to Yad Vashem.  This is a critical and important stop in Jerusalem and is a must for any visit here.  Then to the airport.  I hope to blog tomorrow, but am not sure I'll have WiFi access.  But I will post one or two more blogs, whether I have internet tomorrow or not.