Midnight Mass Sermon 2007

One way or another, everyone’s going to Bethlehem tonight. It’s the rendezvous for all the players in the Christmas story, quite literally from the highest (the angels) to the lowest (the shepherds). Joseph and Mary get to Bethlehem just in time to have their baby, but too late to find a place in the inn, which, has been enjoying full bookings during the counting process.

Pity Joseph and Mary didn’t book ahead. I checked last night on the Internet for good places to stay in Bethlehem. At the top of the list is the Jacir Palace Inter-Continental Hotel and Resort, conveniently located on the Jerusalem-Hebron Road. According to its website, it boasts 250 rooms, and 5 suites. Amenities include a 24-hour front desk, swimming pool, tennis court, barber and beauty shops, a hotel nurse, a laundry, valet, and, of course, each room comes equipped with a refrigerator, safe-deposit box, minibar, internet broadband hook-up, and satellite TV.

Oh yes . . . there are telephones in all the bathrooms.

A deluxe room for two with a king-size bed is available tonight for the special weekend rate of $1,150.00 (U.S.). MasterCard, Visa, and American Express are all gratefully accepted. Availability? I checked on-line, their full. There’s still no room tonight in the inn.

There is one detail, however, that the hotel website fails to mention. It’s hard to get to Bethlehem tonight. Israeli security forces have checkpoints set up on all access roads into the city, and many who try to get in are turned away.

The tourists who do make it past the checkpoints can wander through Bethlehem’s narrow alleys and across the barren Manger Square near the Church of the Nativity.


They can see the Door of Humility, the four-foot tall entrance into that famous basilica. After bending over, as when entering a cave, it’s a short walk to the Grotto of the Nativity, the purported site of Jesus’ birth. The manger is still there, right by the altar – not, of course, the simple clay manger that St. Helen discovered – the silver one that she put in its place.

So, if you could get by the roadblocks tonight, and you could check into your room at the Jacir Palace, and still make it to midnight mass in that glorious church above the silver manger. There would be no time to linger at the shops. Many of them are closed anyway, but you might be tempted to study the photographs posted on the shop walls – pictures of some of the hundreds of Palestinians killed.

Tonight’s the night to go to Bethlehem, but it’s so hard to get there. Instead you could log on, and become a virtual pilgrim. I tried it. It’s a lot less trouble. There are no soldiers to turn you away and no pictures of dead Palestinians to distract you from the baby Jesus in the silver manger.

Stay at a comfortable inn or do the whole thing on the Net. It’s hard to go to Bethlehem tonight. It was harder still on that first Christmas, though.

· Hard for Joseph, who has swallowed his pride to stay betrothed to a woman whose swollen belly declares her pregnant?

· Hard for Mary, who is so weary, not so much from carrying the child in her womb as from carrying the awful weight of whispers behind her back?

· Hard for the shepherds, whose life is already hard enough, without adding a wild goose chase to their nocturnal responsibilities?

· And hard, I think, even for the angels, who have to keep checking back with the control tower to make sure they have the right coordinates. This message to these witnesses? Surely someone at H. Q. has messed up.

It’s always hard to get to Bethlehem, and even harder to know for sure when you’ve arrived. The problem with Christmas is, you can make it to Bethlehem and still miss Jesus. If you rush past the children throwing rocks at the soldiers, or past the photos of children the soldiers have killed, you won’t find Baby Jesus meek and mild – not even if you make it to the church on time. He won’t be there, lying in the silver manger St. Helen made for him.

He’ll be in the homes where grief hangs heavy, like a shroud over the broken body of Mary’s boy.

He’ll be with those who did not make it to church tonight because they stopped on the way to help a stranger.

He’ll be in the homes where he has been invited and in the hearts of those who long for peace, but never speak his name.

Bethlehem is not a slice of land. The manger is not a silver relic in a church. Christmas is not a date on the calendar.

Bethlehem is the place where God is with us. The manger is the place where we can lay our heads upon Christ’s shoulder and, at last, feel safe. Christmas is a constant feast: the feast of the incarnation, the feast of God made flesh – with us, for us, among us, in love with us.

It’s hard to get to Bethlehem. Bethlehem must come to us. And so it has in Jesus.