Back in 2011 I was able to spend twelve days during Advent in the Holy Land. It was a fascinating and moving experience to visit the places we remember at Advent and Christmas at that time of year.

One of the first places we visited was Ein Kerem, the beautiful, though hilly, village where John the Baptist was born and grew up. Someone living there in John’s time would probably have been relatively well off. When we got there, we went first to a spring known as Mary’s spring – and there we were reminded of the importance of wells and springs in Jesus’ day, both for the water they supplied, but also because they were a gathering place for the women. They met at the well and there exchanged the news and the gossip. Today we have many more means of communication, but then it was important that they took the opportunities that were there to share news. Have you heard … ? Did you know ….? It is always interesting to reflect on what news we pass on. It is so easy to spread rumour and gossip, but what we are called to do is spread the Good News, the Gospel. Go and tell. I wonder what are the things that we are going and telling. What is it that we want to share?Ein Kerem is where Mary would have visited her cousin, Elizabeth – and there they were, both expecting babies, and both, it might be assumed, should not have been in that state. Why did Mary go to visit Elizabeth? Was it because she wanted to share her good news? Or might it just be that Mary was sent there to get her out of the way for a bit? How scandalous that she was unmarried and pregnant! And Elizabeth wasn’t much better. She was probably the source of gossip too. She was married all right, but you shouldn’t be having babies at her age. Having a baby should be a source of joy, but for both Mary and Elizabeth there was an element of scandal. How do we respond to the scandal of the Gospel? What do we do with those awkward things that come our way?

Mary responded by writing a fantastic song, the one that we now know as the Magnificat – and on a wall in the grounds of the church, which marks Ein Kerem as the place where John lived, was written, as gifts from many nations, the Magnificat in very many different languages. There it was in Greek, in Hebrew, in Arabic. It was in Spanish and French, Swahili and English and very many more. The Magnificat has many important things to say to us about God’s care for the disadvantaged. He has performed mighty deeds …. He has brought down rulers …. He has filled the hungry …. Are we ready to listen? Are we ready to hear the message of liberation?

What a joy to visit Bethlehem just ahead of Christmas! Just like that first Christmas, as Luke tells it to us, there were lots of visitors in town – only these visitors were not there on business, needing to register themselves for the census that was being undertaken. These visitors were pilgrims, wanting to see the place where Jesus was born, marked now, not by a stable or any other form of domestic or farm building, but by a church. This is an interesting church, not just because of what it marks, but because there has been a church on this site from very early times, and we were able to see something of the indicators as to how it had been adapted and added on to down through the ages.We were able to imagine a very tired Mary arriving in Bethlehem, desperately wanting to find somewhere to rest and then, almost immediately, discovering that the baby was on its way. We have cleaned up the story and made a pretty picture of it, but giving birth in a draughty and, almost certainly, messy stable, cannot have been something anyone would have wanted for their child and themselves.

Being in Bethlehem and thinking back some two thousand or so years was fascinating. We only queued up some ten minutes or so to see the place believed to be where Jesus was born, but I am told it can take a lot longer. Why are there so many twenty-first century pilgrims who want to encounter this spot, when it was just a few shepherds in the first century. One of the things to learn is not to be in a hurry, and to realise that God’s time is always best. People were selling all sorts of things, but mainly souvenirs. I suspect there were lots of people selling things in Jesus’ time too, but they would more likely be food and the basic necessities of life. What do we spend our money on? What are our priorities? Perhaps we are helped to work that out when we pause to ponder where it is that God would have us be, what it is that God would have us do?

At Bethlehem that first Christmas, that great thing that we often refer to as the incarnation took place. What does that mean for us here and now?

Paul Whittle