Bethlehem, where the Prince of Peace was born

Jesus was born in Bethlehem, a place whose people yearn for peace. In the fifth part of his series on the recent Pilgrimage of the Peacemakers, GÜNTHER SIMMERMACHER takes us on a tour of the city.

 

The Bread of Life was born in the House of Bread, for that is the meaning of the name Bethlehem.

Located just 10km from Jerusalem, the ancient city has two particularly illustrious sons. King David was from Bethlehem and was crowned there; and, as we are reminded every Christmas, it was the little town where Jesus was born.

The location of Jesus’ birth tends to exercise scholars of the Bible. Matthew and Luke both place the Lord’s birth in Bethlehem, but Luke’s account of the census that brought Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem is inconsistent with history, and Matthew offers no explanation for why they were in Bethlehem in the first place. So all manner of theories about Jesus’ birthplace are being proposed — none of which, in absence of a birth certificate, are verifiable.

Yet, there is no documentation to suggest that Jesus was born elsewhere, and all ancient tradition points to Bethlehem. It is arrogant to imagine that the ancient Christians who passed down the story of their Lord’s life can’t be trusted to have remembered the major places of that life.

So whatever deficiencies there might be in the details of the gospel’s nativity account — remember, they were not written as biographies in the sense that we today understand the concept — there is no good reason to doubt that Matthew and Luke restated what all the Christians of Palestine knew to be true.

In fact, it is almost implausible that the Christians of Bethlehem would have forgotten the exact place of Jesus’ birth. Just as you and I will recall the places of meaning in our lives — the house where our best childhood friend lived, the spot where we broke an arm, or the church where our parents were married — so will the locals have remembered the birthplace of the Saviour, Jesus of Nazareth, faith in whom people were prepared to die for.

In the second century St Justin Martyr (c. 100–165) attested to “a certain cave” — the phrase always indicates that the location is common knowledge— that was being venerated as Jesus’ birthplace. The philosopher Origen noted in the early 3rd century that even non-Christians accepted the cave as that of Christ’s nativity.

As they did with the place of Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection, the Romans helped keep that memory alive by building a pagan temple dedicated to Adonis, in the form of a grove, over the place of Jesus’ birth. They might have intended to discourage Christian devotion to the place of the nativity. If that was the plan, it didn’t work very well. In 313 Emperor Constantine legalised Christianity; a decade later he sent his mother, Helena, to the Holy Land to finance and supervise the construction of churches on sacred sites.

Helena is often credited with discovering the holy sites of Jesus’ life, leading us to believe that she was something of a super-archaeologist. In fact, all she needed to do was to follow her local Christian guides who had inherited the practice of venerating these sites over many generations. And in Bethlehem all they had to do was take Helena to the pagan temple.

One of the first churches she commissioned in the Holy Land was the church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, which was completed in 333. That church was destroyed in the 6th century during a revolt by Samaritans. It was rebuilt in 565, and that is the church we still visit today, as our Pilgrimage of the Peacemakers group did.

Inside this ancient church, which currently is undergoing comprehensive renovations, pilgrims descend a few stairs to enter the grotto of Our Lord’s birth. They kneel below an altar and touch the silver star which identifies the spot where Our Lady gave birth. On the opposite side is an often overlooked altar which stands on the place of the manger.

The shops in Bethlehem that sell the beautiful olive wood carvings of biblical events tend to present the nativity in the form we are used to from Christmas cards and plays: the open-fronted wooden stable, with the Holy Family surrounded by animals and shepherds, maybe a palm next to it.

The reality was different. Jesus was born in a cave which probably formed part of a domestic abode. Many houses in the region were built in front of caves; some still are even today. The caves would be used to keep the animals; the front structure would be the family’s living, sleeping and cooking area.

So when there was no room at the inn, we must not imagine overbooked hotels. Mary and Joseph were looking for room in a domestic residence. One family offered them accommodation, lodging them in the cave. This was a good place to give birth in: it was warm and safe. And it was probably quite peaceful.

Bethlehem today is not at peace. As a Palestinian town in the West Bank, it is almost completely encircled by the Israeli Separation Wall which jags eight metres high into the sky and is dotted with prison-type watchtowers. There are three checkpoints through which residents must pass in most humiliating conditions — sometimes to be denied entrance into Israeli territory anyway. Tour buses pass through these checkpoints without any hassles.

Israel calls the wall a Security Barrier, saying its aim is to keep out suicide bombers. But if that was the only purpose of the wall, which snakes throughout the West Bank, it would have been built on the accepted border between Israel and Palestinian territory. Instead much of it is built on Palestinian land, often separating farmers from their land, workers from their place of employment, pupils from their schools.

Peace activists call the barrier an Annexation Wall. Indeed, on Palestinian land outside the wall that encircles Bethlehem, Israel is building settlements, which are illegal in international law, as even Israel’s closest allies, including the United States, acknowledge.

Among those from whom Israel has taken land in order to extend the wall is the Catholic Salesian order in the Cremisan Valley on the edge of Bethlehem.

As the wall stands and the illegal settlements go up all around, there is no way for Bethlehem’s population to expand. Work in the city is scarce and access to jobs outside it is made impossible by the wall and the limitations on free movement imposed by the checkpoints.

The copious graffiti on the wall in Bethlehem includes the rhetoric of protest one would expect to find, but also many messages of peace, often referring to Christian imagery. This is not surprising. Although its community in the town has diminished over the years, Christians still take on leadership roles in Bethlehem. Its mayor is a Roman Catholic woman, its university is Catholic (though most of its students are Muslims), as is its main hospital.

Among the many poignant graffiti, one caught our group’s eye. In the middle of the scene stands a Palestinian Lady Liberty. To the left an Israeli soldier aims his machine gun at her; to the right Palestinian protesters are throwing stones. Neither of these, the message suggests, will secure peace.

The wall obviously also touched Pope Francis, whom Palestinians credit for flying into Bethlehem from Jordan on his May 2014 Holy Land visit, instead of Tel Aviv, thereby acknowledging Palestinian claims to nationhood.

As he was driven through Bethlehem, the pope suddenly ordered his car to stop at the Separation Wall. He got out and prayed at the wall in the same position he would later adopt at the Western Wall in Jerusalem. It was a powerful moment, amplified by the graffiti at the spot where the pope chose to pray. Above him was the sprayed message: “Pope, we need some 1 to speak about justice. Bethlehem look like Warsaw ghetto.” Next to the pope was the slogan, “Free Palestine”.

Our Peacemakers group met with a peace-building organisation called Wi’am (Arabic for “cordial relationships”). It describes itself as the Palestinian Conflict Resolution and Transformation Centre. Its offices are next to the Separation Wall which casts a shadow over the organisation’s playground.

Wi’am received the 2010 Peacebuilding Award in the World Vision International Peace Prize for “successfully integrating traditional Palestinian mediation customs with innovative academic models of conflict analysis to address the very difficult circumstances of Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank”.

We were addressed by the organisation’s founder and director, Dr Zoughbi Zoughbi, a distinguished gentleman with a professorial bearing. He has seen much suffering; among Wi’am’s activities is a programme for traumatised children and youths.

Still, he began by saying that no good is served by pointing fingers in ways that negate the potential for a dialogue for peace. Wi’am sees dialogue and mediation as an essential means of creating peace. The organisation frames this within the Arabic principle of Sulha, a form of restorative justice.

As South Africans our minds turned to the peacemakers under apartheid, led by Christian leaders such as Denis Hurley, Desmond Tutu, Beyers Naudé, Allan Boesak and so on, and so many people on the ground. Like some of them under apartheid, Dr Zoughbi has no freedom of movement. As a Christian, his great wish is to pray in the church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, just a short drive away—if you can get out of Bethlehem. But Israel will not issue him with a permit to leave Bethlehem, despite many applications.

After our meeting with Wi’am, Archbishop Stephen Brislin led us in prayer for peace and justice in front of the wall, as its huge watchtower cut into the clouds.

My particular prayer that day was that Dr Zoughbi, and the many Christian people like him, might be able to exit the town of the birth of the Prince of Peace to pray at the place of his death and resurrection.

Last Week: Samaria: Where Jesus Dared to Go

 

Günther Simmermacher is the author of The Holy Land Trek: A Pilgrim’s Guide, published by Southern Cross Books (order from www.holylandtrek.com). Join The Southern Cross on the Year of Mercy Pilgrimage to the Holy Land in October, led by Fr Larry Kaufmann CSsR. For details and illustrated itinerary see www.fowlertours.co.za/kaufmann