When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.” – Luke 2:15
In Bethlehem is the famous Church of the Nativity. The Roman emperor Constantine’s mother, Helena, built it in the fourth century to cover and protect the site of the true manger. The church is one of the oldest in Christendom and is a regular tour stop for pilgrims today who travel to Israel.
But it is not a particularly beautiful building. The typical first-time visitor to the church will remark on how worn out, even dirty the place looks. Even more, the inside of the church is a hodge-podge of devotional trappings that have been placed there over the centuries by one Christian group or another. It’s a virtual landfill of candles, icons, tables, lamps, wires, and chains.
The reason people go to the church, of course, is to see where Jesus was born. Inside the church, down a few narrow steps, beneath the altar, and on the floor is a fourteen-pointed silver star that marks the site. Pilgrims pass by it, perhaps pause and kneel down, and then move on, allowing others to do the same. In a few more minutes, everybody’s back outside, squinting in the sunshine.
I’ve been there four times and each time, someone has asked me what it’s all for. (Tradition.) They ask, “Why can’t they clean up the place.” (Don’t know.) Or they ask, “Is this really the place where Jesus was born?” (Probably not, but it’s close.)
When Americans go to Bethlehem, they want the simple story of Christmas – as they understand it – to be affirmed. They want Jesus and Mary and Joseph and maybe the shepherds and a few animals. And not much more. At the very least, they want the place cleaned up. All the candles and lamp stands and overhead wires are confusing and detractive. “What does this have to do with the birth of Jesus?” they ask. I can’t say I blame them. It’s a lot to overlook.
But as distracting as the lamps and the candles and all the chains that hold them up may be, it’s worth pointing out – before we get too uppity – that we do the same thing, in our own way, to our own Christmas. Here, it’s not icons or lamps or chains. But it is gift buying, card sending, party attending, house decorating, and tree trimming that do little but drive us to exhaustion and make us forget that we are commemorating the birth of Jesus, the coming of God into the world.
Really, now don’t you wonder what the neighbors must think?
Your neighbors who know you as a God-fearing, church attending Christian all the rest of the year, they look at the snow globe Santas on your lawn, hear you complain about your hectic schedule, see you pull out of your driveway heading to the store for yet another round of shopping or yet another Christmas party, and they must think, “What does any of this have to do with Christmas? Can’t they at least clean the place up?”
We could, of course, try to explain what this and that thing are for and why we do them. But we may never be asked. The impression is already made. Besides, should we have to?
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born a martyr. He found a Golgotha (where he was crucified) even in Bethlehem, where he was born; for, to his tenderness then, the straws were almost as sharp as the thorns after; and the manger as uneasy at first, as his cross at last. His birth and his death were but one continual act, and his Christmas Day and his Good Friday are but the evening and morning of one and the same day.
Thoughts Along the Way 