How Far is it to Bethlehem
How far is it to Bethlehem?
When Mary and Joseph took for Bethlehem from Nazareth it was a three day journey on foot. Mary rode a donkey, but given her condition—great with child—it could not have been an easy trip.
How far had the three wise men traveled? From Persia, today’s Iran, a three week journey on camels across desert sands.
If we travel to Bethlehem today we’ll take a plane to Tel Aviv, 6,000 miles, then a car to Jerusalem, then four miles to Bethlehem across barbed wire walls, through the gates with armed soldiers, into the West Bank governed by the Palestinian Authority. No wonder churches around the world pray for the peace of Jerusalem at Christmas.
When you get to the Church of Nativity in Bethlehem, built on the site where tradition says Jesus was born, you have to stoop to enter the front door; only children can enter upright. It seems right, doesn’t it, that we must bow to enter? That we must become as a child.
You go downstairs under the chancel to a room 13×33 feet. On the floor there is a silver star marking the spot. Who would not want to kneel and touch it, even place your lips on it. The world needs a place to kneel. Here is one.
What is the meaning of this holy night and this holy place called Bethlehem?
In Phillips Brooks’ famous carol, “O Little Town of Bethlehem” we hear words: “The hope and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.”
What is the hope of all the years? That we are not alone in the universe, that there is a God who knows us and cares. That such a God visits us, that we all will see God’s human face and that it is the face of love.
Ancient myths hoped for a visitation of the gods or God, and now this myth-like hope has become real in the birth of Christ. C.S. Lewis calls the Jesus Story a “true myth”. Answering the hope of people through all time, but now true, real, historically so.
W.H. Auden, in his Christmas Oratorio, “For the Time Being” has the chorus say:
We who must die demand a miracle.
How could the Eternal do a temporal act,
The Infinite become a finite fact?
Nothing can save us that is possible:
We who must die demand a miracle.
Tonight we witness the miracle, the Incarnation, God made flesh, the hope of all the years.
What about the fears? They are too many to name, but they are there in the dark streets of our minds, a wrecking ball to our peace of mind.
Anne Lamott says that some days our minds are like bad neighborhoods you don’t want to enter alone. But we are not alone. God is with us. And as the carol sings:
But in the dark streets shineth an everlasting light.
In a children’s book by the famous novelist Reynolds Price, A Perfect Friend, the elephant says to his friend Ben’s mind:
Behind you is safe. All around you is safe. Be fearless now.
Do you know the most oft-repeated command in scripture? It’s the angel’s word to the shepherds: “Fear not.”
The prophet says that God goes before us and is our “rear guard”. Be fearless now.
Fear can dominate our lives, our communities, our politics, but the hope and fears of all the years are met in him tonight.
Here is another place of wonder for me tonight: That on this night God became small enough for us to love. Small enough for us to hold, to rock, to feel his tiny hand suddenly grip ours.
Perhaps this is where we begin to follow the Greatest Commandment: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy mind, heart, soul and strength.” There, with this child.
How far is it to Bethlehem? Six thousand miles by airplane and car, a week’s journey across the sands as the wise men, a three day’s journey as Mary and Joseph, across the hills, as the shepherds?
How about 16 inches? The distance between your head and your heart, sometimes the longest journey of all. But one you can travel in an instant, as the mind descends into the heart.
The carol sings these words:
How far is it to Bethlehem?
Not very far.
Shall we find a stable room
Lit by a star?
Can we see the little child
Is he within?
If we lift the wooden latch
May we go in?
If we touch his tiny hand
Will he awake?
Will he know we’ve come this far
Just for his sake?
His sake, and our own, and the world’s where the hope and fears of all the years are met in him tonight.