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Good Morning

Last month I was privileged to stay for a couple of nights in a hotel in Bethlehem. And not just in Bethlehem but in Manger Square, where last minute preparations are now being made for next week’s Christmas celebrations.

The Church of the Nativity is a huge, rambling building towering over a tiny cave. And at the bottom of a steep spiralling staircase is a simple silver star, marking the place where Jesus is said to have been born during a time of Roman occupation and conflict.

For a Christian, to descend to this place, is an great act of pilgrimage. I was able to be there at 6am in the morning as the orthodox monks prepared for their liturgy. It really was a mystical moment when the problems affecting the world came together in a profound and sobering way.
2014 has been a fraught year on the international stage. Levels of man’s inhumanity to man seem to have descended to a new level of violence and destruction – especially in these last few days.

The strain and bewilderment amongst the Pakistani community in my own parish in the East End has been tangible all week. I have looked at their faces. Their spirit seems to have been drained as they light candles and pray for the souls of their children. I found one young man who spent Thursday afternoon weeping in church, just staring at the glimmering candles that had been lit there.

The fact that Jesus was born, like us, as a child, was not something which the ancient church in the early centuries seemed too concerned about until around the 4th century.

The events which took place in Bethlehem then began to attract reflection from contemporary spiritual writers known as the Church Fathers. Why did God send his son as a vulnerable, innocent child in the first place? Irenaeus, more than once, suggests that Bethlehem shows how Jesus sanctifies humanity.

And in the combined wisdom of St Augustine and Leo the Great we read of how the act of Jesus’ birth, in its historic context, offers us a way through the ultimate questions and perplexities which the world now, and then, throws up at us. There is, they write, a remnant of hope because of the birth of this child.

We are almost there. This is a weekend of travelling, shopping, preparing and finally getting ready. But for what?

As I stared at that Bethlehem star …. and after the headlines of this particular week, what it [the star of Bethlehem] represents is more critical to me than ever, in terms of a constant and vibrant hope undergirding the Christmas story, which it does, at every twist and turn.

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