Pastor's Weekly Word

(This is a reflection I wrote during my recent visit to the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, the place, as tradition has it, where Christ was born. In the spirit of beginnings, I share it with you as we begin the season of Lent together.)

While visiting the Church of the Nativity in Manger Square in Bethlehem, I was caught off guard in a way I did not expect. I was expecting to see the spot where Jesus was first laid and took his first breath, but I was not expecting this. Right next to the manger itself, separated only by a wall built much later, sits the tomb of the innocents, a memorial to the firstborns killed in Herod’s attempt to end Jesus's life before it ever got started. Standing in the breach of their deaths and our Savior’s birth is a stark reminder of our horrific capacity to want to snuff out something new and beautiful from God in order to try and keep things the way they are.

When reflecting on her own visit to the manger, author and pastor Danielle Shroyer writes, "You can imagine Jesus sleeping there, with Mary and Joseph nearby, all of them unaware that soon enough the kingdoms of this world will start coming for him, starting first with Herod and ending with the full power of the Roman Empire itself. In between he will bring discomfort to every kind of power this world has to offer: political and economic power, religious power, powers of class and gender and ethnicity, powers of nation and state. He will even disrupt natural powers: disease, storms, a simple loaf of bread. This child is King, and there is no place on which his authority does not rest. He will replace all those misplaced attempts at power with the only force that can undo them: the unconditional, unwavering, unfaltering love of God."

While inside this holy place, we spontaneously began singing "O Little Town of Bethlehem." As we entered the cave of the birth of our Lord and touched the spot where so many have come, we sang words that so many have sung. "The hopes and fears of all the years" we sang as the air became ripe with the same unconditional, unwavering, unfaltering love of God that overshadows all the powers that too easily monopolize our lives and the world we live in. And in a glimpse, in a fleeting moment, a group of Presbyterian pilgrims could feel the heart of our faith beating.