I re\u00admem\u00adber stand\u00ading in the old church in Beth\u00adle\u00adhem, close to the spot where Je\u00adsus was born, when the whole church was ring\u00ading hour after hour with splen\u00addid hymns of praise to God, how again and again it seemed as if I could hear voic\u00ades I knew well, tell\u00ading each other of the\u00a0Won\u00adder\u00adful Night\u00a0of the Sav\u00adior\u2019s birth.<\/p>\n
Knowing that Brooks based this hymn on an actual visit to Bethlehem has changed my estimation of it. I had begun to think of the song as sweet but a little schmaltzy, depicting a quiet romanticized village instead of an actual place that has struggled to find peace, both in Jesus\u2019 time and in recent years. During a trip to the Holy Land in 2008, I found my romantic notions of Bethlehem dismantled and replaced by a more realistic picture of what this little town has endured over the centuries. My travel group spent most of our nights at a hotel in Bethlehem, which gave us time to talk with the Christian Palestinian couple who owned the hotel, to visit Bethlehem Bible College, which trains young Christians for ministry, and to walk through a checkpoint between Jerusalem and Bethlehem. At the Church of the Nativity, we marveled at ancient mosaics and the grotto commemorating Jesus\u2019 birth, but we also couldn\u2019t ignore the lingering signs of damage from the siege that occurred there during the Second Intifada in 2002. As much as we might have wanted Bethlehem to be the little peaceful village we like to imagine in biblical times, we couldn\u2019t close our eyes to the strife and challenges that plague the place where Jesus was born.<\/p>\n
And upon going back to our Bibles, we also had to admit that Bethlehem wasn\u2019t a peaceful little village in Jesus\u2019 time either; it was the place where Herod\u2019s soldiers carried out the brutal Massacre of the Innocents. Bethlehem has never escaped the darkness of this world, not in the past or in the present. When I go back to read Brooks\u2019s words more carefully, I realize that he never intended to paint a sweet little picture of Bethlehem; instead, he describes it as shrouded in darkness and in need of a new hope. The town sleeps, unaware that in its midst an everlasting light has begun to shine in the person of Christ. What is true for the little beleaguered city of Bethlehem is true for the whole world; every place on earth needs to hear those voices ringing out, telling of the Savior\u2019s birth. May he be born in us again this Christmas season.<\/p>\n
The featured image is a photo of Bethelhem in 2008 and was supplied by the author.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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