"O little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie!
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep the silent stars go by.
Yet in thy dark streets shineth the everlasting Light;
The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight."
This summer on my trip to the West Bank, I often caught myself humming this hymn that I had sung on so many Christmas Eves before. I found myself singing it quietly to myself in Manger Square or while walking throughout the streets of Beit Jala. This meoldy seemed to narrate my experience as I met with a pleathora of people from different nationalities, religions, and political persuasions, as I visited holy sites, and as I sat on the roof with a young family and heard their heartbreaking story of tragedy that is all too famliar to the people of the West Bank. In the short time we were there, my view of the world began to take a huge shift.
At some points while we were there, it was so hard to believe that Mary and Joseph would have wandered the same streets. The quaint, rural town of Bethlehem I had imagined wasn't there. It was busy and crowded and full of injstice and confusion. Surely, this was not the Bethlehem where Christ appeared...
Other times during the trip, the times I truly cherish, I felt as if Mary and Joseph might as well have been walking alongside me. The glimmers of hope I experienced in conversation with friends, in worship with fellow Christians, and at the sight of flowers that stubbornly worked their way through the cracks of the concrete to bloom reminded me of the God who became incarnate in that very town.
Two thousand years later, the area surrounding the place where Christ was born is one of the most tension-filled areas in the world. Surely, this is the place where a loving God would send Christ to appear.
Tonight, as I give thanks that God is not afraid to dwell among us, the last verse of "O Little Town of Bethlehem" is my prayer:
"O holy Child of Bethlehem, descend to us, we pray;
Cast out our sin, and enter in, be born in us today.
We hear the Christmas angels the great glad tidings tell;
O come to us, abide with us, our Lord Emmanuel!"
