Grace and peace to you from God our Father and our
Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Our beloved Christmas story from Luke’s Gospel
takes place in Bethlehem some six miles south of Jerusalem, in the hill country
of what is known today as the West Bank in the Holy Land.
At the time of the holy birth of Jesus, Bethlehem
was the setting for throngs of people coming for the emperor’s census, to be
counted by the Roman authorities. The Holy Family were pilgrims of a sort,
travelers on a journey to a place far away from home.
In the centuries since then, all through the year
but especially at Christmas, other pilgrims have made their way to celebrate
and remember the birth of Jesus, following a route to the Church of the
Nativity which was built over the spot where it’s believed that Jesus was born.
In 1865, one of the pilgrims was an Episcopal
priest named Phillip Brooks. In a letter to his father, Brooks wrote that,
while in the Holy Land, he traveled by horseback from Jerusalem to the Church
of the Nativity in Bethlehem on Christmas Eve. In his letter, he recalled,
how he stood in the
old church at Bethlehem, close to the spot where Jesus was born, when the whole
church was ringing hour after hour with the splendid hymns of praise to God,
how again and again it seemed as if he could hear voices that he knew well,
telling each of the ‘Wonderful Night’ of the Savior’s birth. [i]
Several years later, Brooks published the words to
the carol, “O Little Town of Bethlehem.” In its first stanza, Brooks writes of “the
everlasting light that shines in the dark streets of Bethlehem.”
This year, as war wages on in Israel and Gaza, the
Christmas celebrations in Bethlehem are muted, the streets are dark, and the
town truly lies still. Because of the
war, tourists and pilgrims who make their way to Bethlehem are absent, and the
Christian congregations who are located there are gathering instead in prayer
for the hostages still in captivity, for the innocent victims of war and for
peace to come to the region.
At Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in
Bethlehem, the creche shows the baby Jesus surrounded by rubble. Describing it,
the church’s pastor explained how in this image of Jesus “[they] see a light of
hope and life coming out of destruction, life coming out of death.”[ii]
That is one of the truths of the Gospel: that God
comes to us in the most forlorn places, bringing hope and life into our lives.
Brooks’ carol echoes that message, declaring, “the
hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.”
The hopes and fears of all the years.
We all have hopes. Simple ones for a white
Christmas, or to see the joy on children’s or grandchildren’s faces. And more
complex ones, like peace in the Holy Land and on the whole earth. It’s easy to
name our hopes, big and small.
But we also are invited to name our fears - whether
they are fears of things that go bump in the night, or fears about the future
and what the world is becoming. We are invited to place our fears in the manger
with the Christ child.
Often, in times of fear or sorrow, I pray that
God’s peace will settle upon us, like a blanket of new fallen snow, calming our
racing hearts, quieting the competing demands for our time and attention,
helping us draw near to God with confidence in God’s grace and mercy, and
comfort in God’s presence.
After all, peace is what is promised by the
prophet Isaiah when he declared that “the child [who] has been born for us is
named …Prince of Peace.” (Isaiah 9:6) And peace is what the angel of the
Lord proclaimed to the shepherds when they were watching their flocks by night.
(Luke 2:8)
As we hear the Christmas story this year we are
invited to join with Mary, Joseph and the shepherds in pondering what God has
done and join with the Christians in Bethlehem praying that God grants us all
peace.
Amen.
[i] https://img1.wsimg.com/blobby/go/da2e233e-6c0a-4239-8b15-63d40119e116/downloads/1c02f5svp_630072.pdf?ver=1702898697613
[ii] https://religionunplugged.com/news/2023/12/11/nativity-crche-in-bethlehem-places-baby-jesus-in-gazas-rubble
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