Messiah vs. Megalomaniac: Merry Christmas!

It has been another day filled with blessings. But these blessings come in the midst of extreme contrasts. Today I crossed from Jerusalem through the WALL into an area under the control of the Palestinian Authority. I passed beautiful, fortress-like Israeli settlements - illegal by any understanding of international law - through a border wall that is reminiscent of nothing so much as the Berlin Wall, but which also invoked images of the Wall that exists on the Border between the USA and Mexico. It was hard for me to see that Wall. It seems so backward, so heavy-handed - so oppressive. I talked with a Palestinian shop-owner, a Christian, who shared that so many Palestinians are becoming more and more strangled by the ring of walls, off-limits roads, and expanding settlements around the city I was visiting today. We talked to a sister and university professor both of whom spoke of the hopelessness endemic in Palestinian society today. I am not here to study the political realities of the modern state of Israel, but it was so in my face today as I spoke to residents of the special town I went to visit today.

That town was Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus Christ. I spent the morning there (and into the afternoon, "observing Christmas." I guess everyday is Christmas in Bethlehem. Then in the afternoon, I went to the ruins of one of fortified palaces of Herod the Great - this was the megalomaniacal Herod that was so insecure, according to Matthew's Gospel, that he slaughtered all the newborns in Judea trying to wipe out this newborn threat to his power.

Living as close as I do to the Mexican Border, I have been struck at Christmas each of the last five years of the border/immigration aspects of the Christmas story. Joseph and Mary were both from Judean families. It is proposed that they were economic refugees in Galilee. Perhaps that is where Joseph could get work. They were required to travel under hardship to their homeland for the sake of Government control from an oppressive regime. When their child was born, the political reality of their homeland made them flee as refugees into Egypt, and only after the change from the oppressive regime, could they return to their own land, still as refugees in a part of the land that was foreign to them: Nazareth. This afternoon, having been through government checkpoints on Walled borders, I could not help but think of those 1st Century refugees, manipulated by powerful political realities in the very same land I in which I am today. Those checkpoints reminded me of my experience in the airport on my way here - the heavy handed questioning, the paranoia, the control - but just like the border crossings I experience at home - I have white skin, speak English, and have a Passport from the United States of America (add to that that I traveling in a vehicle with diplomatic plates). I am not oppressed.

So I was thinking about my two experiences today. Bethlehem and the Herodian. It occurred to me today that I visited the birthplace of the most important man in human history and I visited the burial place of a man who thought himself the most important man in history. The one tried to wipe out the other (and even if you believe, as most scholars do,that the slaughter of the innocents was not an historical event, there is still plenty of evidence of how ruthless, murderous, and paranoid this man was - the slaughter of the innocents is completely consistent with his personality - it's just that he tended to kill his own offspring instead of those of others). Interesting that of the two buildings I visited today - monuments to these contrasting stories - it is the ancient monument to the innocent child that still stands.

In fact it is amazing that it does. Christian pilgrims identified the place of Jesus' birth early in the 1st Century. In the second Century, following the second Jewish Revolt, the Emperor Hadrian, attempting to wipe all aspects of Judaism from the map, replaced the pilgrimage site with a temple of Adonis. Because of the location of that temple, Constantine's mother, St. Helena, had no trouble at all locating the exact cave that had served as a stable in the first Century and in which Jesus was born. Ironically, again someone tried to wipe Jesus off he map and unwittingly lead his followers to the exact spot of his birth. Helena had a basilica built over the exact spot. In 590, the Emperor Justinian expanded that basilica into the form we see today. Almost everything in Bethlehem was destroyed by Parthians in 614. But the Basilica was spared because of an image of the magi, who were dressed in Persian (Parthian) clothing. Because of this accident of history, the Basilica of the Nativity is the oldest Church building in the Holy Land, standing as we see it today for more than 14 centuries.

Presently, the Basilica is in the hands of the Greek Orthodox Church. But there is great cooperation allowing pilgrims to access all the holy sites. Their is a series of caves beneath the basilica which date to the 1st Century and are now occupied with chapels and tombs related to the Nativity of Jesus. Today, we celebrated Mass in the Study of St. Jerome. St. Jerome, of course was the 4th Century Scripture scholar known chiefly as the man who translated the Bible into Latin for the first time. His famous dictum is "Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ." He chose to wok in Bethlehem so that he could be near the place where the WORD became flesh. How appropriate that during this Summer of scripture study, our Mass at Bethlehem would be in the cave St. Jerome used as a study. Today we celebrated the Mass of Christmas Day - everyday is Christmas in Bethlehem. The first reading was from Isaiah 52, a text every Dominican knows and loves: "How beautiful on the mountain are the feet of him brings glad tidings [translates: "good news", "gospel"], announcing Peace, proclaiming Good News [again; "Gospel"], announcing salvation and saying to Zion: "Your God is King" I don't remember ever using this text on Christmas morning - but today, it is perfect! It is a Dominican Christmas here in Bethlehem today and we are called to announce the Good News - the WORD is made flesh and makes his dwelling among us!

After Mass I went to the main Basilica and went down into the cave beneath the high altar and there in the floor marked by a Silver Star that bears the inscription; "HIC DE VIRGINE MARIA JESUS CHRISTUS NATUS EST." (Here of the Virgin Mary Jesus Christ was born). Again the weight of the history was overwhelming.

"In the beginning," St. John tells us, "was the WORD, and the WORD was with God, and the WORD was God... And the WORD was made flesh and made his dwelling among us, and we saw his glory, the glory as of the Father's only Son, full of Grace and Truth." I fell to my knees in front of the altar and touched the stone in the middle of the star - this was the place in which the God of the Universe pitched his tent with us. This is the place in which the WORD became flesh. "And now we are standing within your gates O Jerusalem!"

We were early so the hoards of pilgrims who would be here later in the day were not there yet. So I had time to pray the rosary. On my knees in front of the birthplace of Jesus, I shared the Bible with Fr. Steve and read the story of the birth of Jesus from Luke's Gospel. It takes me 15 minutes to pray five decades of the Rosary and I was in the grotto much longer than that. What a blessing! I am filled up with the Word and so pleased to have had so much time in this very special place. Fr. Steve and I felt that we did not have enough time and have vowed to come back at least one more time before our Holy Land Sojourn is complete.

After our time in the Basilica, we visited the Milk Grotto Church, a workshop where handmade olive wood mementoes are made and sold (where I bought a lot of souvenirs), to visit the Franciscan Sisters to make a donation for the poor, and then up the hill to visit the Christian Brother run Bethlehem University. We were given a brief tour of the Campus, and especially the chapel by Brother Jack, an American Christian Brother who teaches at BU.

The chapel is a special place - Chapel of the Holy Child - filled with images of Children. The image of Jesus above the high altar is a sculpture of a young adolescent - think Jesus in the temple with the scholars of the law. (We are used to seeing Jesus as the little baby and as the grown man - this was an unusual image.) The sides of the Church are painted with the images of "martyred children" from all over the world. There are four special frescoes surrounding the altar that depict the "holy innocents."

After Bethlehem University, we made our way back down to Manger Square and enjoyed a delightful middle-eastern lunch and then went over to the "Shepherds' Field" shrine just outside the City. In the very modern round church, we prayed he Gloria, listened to Father Steve read the story of the Shepherds from Luke and we sat for a few moments in private prayer.

The tone of our day changed as we left Bethlehem and drove a few miles South to the Herodian, the ruins of an elaborate Palace built by Herod the Great around 20 BC. Herod built an artificial conical hill 200 feet tall and built a fortified castle on top of it. At the base of the hill, he built and elaborate summer palace complete with gardens and pools. All that remains today of any of this are elaborate ruins. IT was fun to walk all over those ruins. I got my first glimpse of the Jordan and the Dead Sea from the top of Herod's hill today. We walked down into the elaborate cistern system and tunnels by whihc water was supplied to the palace. We spoke long of the ego that drove this madman of the First Century BC to elaborate building projects all over Palestine (we will see much more in weeks to come). But in the end he died and was buried in a tomb on the side of his artificial hill out here in the Judean Desert. That tomb was only just located two years ago. His tomb was desecrated and sealed under dirt by rebels in the second Jewish revolt - rebels who considered Herod a symbol of collaboration with Rome.

So the Story goes - Herod tried to wipe Jesus out. Herod built huge monuments to himself all over Palestine. Herod thought he was the most important man in the world. We might make the same arguments about any of the Roman ruins I visited earlier this month in Rome. Rome was complicit in trying to wipe out Jesus too. But in Rome, I walked in a 1600 year old Church that is still being used as a Church today. Today, I walked in a 1400 year old Church - a monument to a baby - a monument to the WORD made flesh.

"Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem in the days of Herod the King, there came wise men from the East..." 2 men are mentioned in that beginning of the Christmas story in Matthew. Caesar Augustus is the first name mentioned in the account of the birth of Jesus in Luke's Gospel. Caesar and Herod were both responsible for the oppression of many people - they figure prominently in the "refugee" story that affected Our Lord and Our Lady, and yet today their worlds lie in ruin, but the world of Jesus is still the shining city on the Hill from the Sermon on the Mount. That is the story of hope that must be preached to the Palestinian people and which must drive all progress towards Peace in the Middle East. "How beautiful on the Mountain are the feet of those who bring good news, announcing PEACE, proclaiming salvation: OUR GOD REIGNS!" Merry Christmas from Bethlehem!

Don't forget to check out the albums of pictures that accompany this blog at

http://picasaweb.google.com/FrBart/Jerusalem2009

and

http://picasaweb.google.com/FrBart/MoreJerusalem2009