Bethlehem reality

O little town of Bethlehem, How still we see thee lie! Above thy deep and dreamless sleep The silent stars go by; FOR many people it’s the old Christmas carols that draw them into church at this time of the year, and who would deny anyone their once a year opportunity to bask in the memory of their childhood or enjoy the romanticised idea of a Victorian Christmas? The problem, however, for those who have to interpret the Biblical text or who have to make comment on the present situation in the land of Jesus’ birth, is that most of the old carols greatly distort the reality of life in Bethlehem both as it was in Jesus’ time and as it is now.

I am writing this piece in Bethlehem and there is nothing still or dreamless about it.

I am writing this piece in Bethlehem and there is nothing still or dreamless about it. The reality of this little town is that it is under occupation today just as it was when Jesus was born.

A great concrete dividing wall stands between it and Jerusalem and from 3am every morning hundreds of Bethlehemites, mostly Arab Muslims have to make the dehumanising journey through the cages of Checkpoint 300 in order to get to work. It’s a fearsome sight, but it’s everyday life for Palestinians who live in Bethlehem. The dividing wall itself bears much graffiti; many creative artists have been at work, but for me the best is by the artist who took the time to paint in giant lettering the words of Jeremiah 31:15, echoed in Matthew 2:18: “Rachel is weeping for her children”. From the place where these words are most visible you can clearly see the Aida Refugee Camp which has become the permanent home of successive generations of Palestinians who fled from their homes after the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.

The reality, in place and time, of that first Christmas is no less disturbing than the reality of today. The great poet and mystic Thomas Merton was right when he said: “There were only a few shepherds at the first Bethlehem. The ox and the donkey understood more of the first Christmas than the high priests in Jerusalem. And it is the same today.”

The reference to Rachel and her tears is partly because the Aida Camp is just beside the place where Rachel, who died in giving birth to Benjamin, is buried, partly because it is a reference to Herod the paranoid King who, feeling threatened by the birth of a pretender to his throne, is said to have taken the lives of the children of that neighbourhood and it is partly because – who would not weep to see such a terrible divide and such an imbalance of rights and opportunities on the opposite sides of a wall in the land where our faith was born. Phillips Brooks, the writer of O little town of Bethlehem was, according to all reports, a thoroughly decent man. Before his death in 1893 he was the Bishop of Massachusetts and on most issues, most notably in the battle against slavery, he was on the side of the angels, but he could never have imagined how wrong he could have been in his description of Bethlehem or how idealised was his depiction of the Nativity. When Joseph steered his donkey and its precious load into Bethlehem 2000 years ago I’m sure that Mary was not interested in the silent stars and I’m sure she would have preferred to have been back home in Nazareth rather than having to be in Bethlehem because the Occupier had called a census. This year when you hear the Christmas angels, the great glad tidings tell; spare a thought for the people of the place we often call the Holy Land and remember the reality of what life is like for those who are separated by the West Bank Barrier and pray that one day peace may come to this troubled place