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There were shepherds, living in the fields, keeping watch over their flocks by night. Suddenly, an angel of the Lord stood before them…and said to them, “I am bringing you good news: a great joy for all people-- there is born this day, in the City of David (Bethlehem) a savior…”
And the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go now to Bethlehem and see…”
I have this fantasy of Bethlehem: it is a quaint, pastoral village. In my imagination I see people walking the streets wearing sandals and tunics. There are lowing cattle, sheep trotting through town, and a docile donkey at a hitching post. I can smell bread baking, and mutton on a grill. At night, the stars shine brightly above a peaceful and safe hamlet. It is in the lyrics of Hymn #230: “O little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie…” In my fantasy, Bethlehem is a perfect picture for a Christmas card, a winning theme for a carol.
I have other make-believe fantasies about Christmas: that eggnog, fruitcake, and chocolate covered cherries have no calories; that all Hallmark holiday movies are true to life; that every Christmas past was wonderful. I’m a Christmas traditionalist: a live Christmas tree in the house, Christmas music throughout December, driving around town at night to see all the lighted decorations, intentions to personally greet every friend I have in the world (by card, text, visit, or phone call) by Christmas Day…
On Christmas, all should be well, all problems resolved, everything bathed in goodness. The night of Jesus’ birth MUST be the most gentle of all nights: an enchanting, twinkling, magical time, when the arc of all history pivoting into joy and peace.
Nothing says Christmas (in my imagination) better than a Hallmark holiday movie. Okay—so they’re all the same: the protagonist, an attractive young person, is engaged to someone inappropriate. Then the protagonists gets called away to a rural area and gets stuck there over Christmas. The rural community just happens to be in in a crisis because its Christmas traditions are about to fall by the wayside. Meanwhile, the protagonist falls in love with the right person, who happens to live in that little rural community. But then the story gets screwed around and the protagonist gets discouraged and heads back to the city. Love and Christmas are both about to bite the dust. But then the story gets straightened out, and the couple-meant-to-be get back together, and Christmas is saved for the whole town. There of hundreds of these movies—and all of them have the same story. But because I love my fantasies, I can’t get enough of these movies.
It's all part of my vivid imagination, my picture of Bethlehem, my saturation in Hallmark movies, and my selective memories of Christmas past. I look back and see my daughters when they were little: Christmas Eve worship as a family, Christmas morning with the daughters all wearing identical holiday pajamas and fixing breakfast for the family, the carefully choreographed opening of Christmas presents, the family outing to the movie theater on Christmas night…
It was perfect back then. I was always able to get everyone the perfect gift, albeit at the last minute. I remember piling the kids in the car and cruising around the neighborhood looking at Christmas lights, every night in December. And about once a week we would drive the 12 miles to Pontoon Beach (near Granite City) to look at the gaudiest decorations in the two-state area. The house was grossly overdecorated: a mashup of Christmas stories (Rudolf visiting the manger?) and the worst waste of electricity we’d ever seen. But we couldn’t take our eyes off of it, and we kept coming back.
I love an idyllic, ideal, perfect Christmas—where dreams come true, miracles surprise, and all’s right with the world, particularly with the people I care most about. Silent night, holy night, all is calm, ALL IS BRIGHT! That’s my kind of Bethlehem—my kind of Christmas, how it should be.
And I get a little angry when bad things happen to people at Christmas. Such as this diet I’m on this year that has left me pursing my lips over a thin liquid of non-dairy, soy eggnog. Such as a blizzard right when everyone is trying to get somewhere. Such as the flu bug. Such as Covid. Such as running out of money and not being able to buy toys for children. Such as not getting enough musicians to stay in town to have a full church choir. Such as getting bad news. Such as feeling blue and depressed. Such as loved ones not being around anymore.
For 13 years Earl-the Cat was part of Christmas at our house. When he was a kitten, he knocked all the decorations off the tree. When he got fat and lazy, he just curled up underneath it and took long winter naps. In his old age, he loved to doze the day away under the Christmas tree. But Earl died last spring, and when we put the tree up a few weeks ago, it felt empty underneath. So, I went and got his box of ashes and set him gently under the tree again, and Jie and I both cried a little. Christmas made us miss him all the more.
And it gets even harder when Christmas is missing the people we care most about. Daughters grow up and move away, grandparents die, parents get spread thin by expanding families, divorce leaves a hole, friends grow apart… Worst of all is when death hits home and Christmas loses all its magic; all that is left is pain, sometimes unbearable.
All this brings me to the other Bethlehem, the real one, the one not fabricated in my mind. I’ve been to the real Bethlehem, and it ain’t like any of our songs say.
Modern Bethlehem is a crowded mass of 100,000 people. It is full of people who will rip you off. You can’t even trust the tourist companies or the churches. Everyone is trying to make a buck. Trucks and cars honk their way through narrow and jammed streets. And the worst of it all is that the whole city has become a prison for its Palestinian population. Everyone there, Christian and Muslim, is confined by a 26-foot wall, guarded by Israeli soldiers with machine guns. Residents cannot come or go, even to school, work or church, without lining up and going through a humiliating checkpoint.
And the alleged spot where Jesus was born is a gaudy, relic filled grotto underneath a 6th century church, alien to every manger scene I’ve ever imagined. How can such a vile place, such a dystopia offer “good news: a great joy for all people?” The real Bethlehem is trying to ruin Christmas.
Biblical scholarship doesn’t help any: it supports our disillusion, not our fantasy. Even in Bible times, Bethlehem was never a village to inspire a lullaby. Throughout the Bible, it was a no-place, filled with nobodies. No one could believe that King David grew up there. In the Christmas story, Mary and Joseph found Bethlehem to be too far from home (Nazareth,) inhospitable (no room in the inn), impoverished (a manger for a cradle) and dangerous (Herod’s soldiers would soon be on the way to kill all the babies in town). If the biblical Bethlehem isn’t a bummer, what is? Let’s face it: the lodging afforded Mary and Joseph stunk. Everything that could go wrong in Bethlehem did go wrong. Talk about a rotten Christmas: read the Bible story-- of Jesus’ birth.
They might not have had Putin and Covid and Winter Storm Elliot, but they had Herod and homelessness and humiliation. It was so bad that it became necessary to insert angels into the Bible story, because otherwise nobody would have a clue that good news was taking place that night.
Why did the world’s greatest story have to take place in the sorriest of places? And why did it have to take place in the night, metaphor for loneliness, fear, helplessness…
But then I think of the God that the grown-up Jesus taught us about: a God who shows up precisely at the places where people are most oppressed, most grieved, most hopeless. Of course it would be Bethlehem. Of course it would be at night. Of course God would meet us in our
deepest needs, deepest desires, and deepest sorrows.
Jesus makes a first appearance in the in the night, in Bethlehem. Some scholars say Jesus was born in Bethlehem in order to connect him with David. I say that he was born there because the place sucked. He came as God incognito, to the place God was most needed. And unlike a Hallmark movie, the problems wouldn’t be resolved in an instant. It takes a while. God works through love, not by shoving people around, nor by hijacking the trajectory of a life or society.
And so we see Jesus as a baby, first. But as the story goes on, and people and the world slowly change, we also see Jesus the refugee, Jesus the inquiring child, Jesus as a beggar, Jesus as an immigrant, Jesus as a sick old woman, Jesus as a hungry child, Jesus as a mentor, Jesus as a healer, Jesus as a debater, Jesus hosting a meal, Jesus beaten senseless by the authorities, Jesus acting kindly, Jesus acting calmly, Jesus refusing to condemn, Jesus fighting demons, Jesus touching an untouchable leper, Jesus refusing to accept death as the final word, Jesus laughing… Jesus appears over and over in the world, through all the stories of the New Testament, through church history, through our own lives. And he is never far away from us. All we need to do is look for “Bethlehem,” all we need to do is watch in the night, and Jesus will appear, perhaps incognito, perhaps transparently.
In the Bible, unlike the movies, the story doesn’t get resolved by Christmas Day. No way. In the Bible, Christmas Day is just the START of the new story. And we sing our peace and joy, not because it HAS fully arrived, but because the one who is the pivot for our lives and world is just getting started.
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