Bethlehem. The star, the shepherds, the cows and the manger, that whole Christmas scene. It feels good. The nativity display in front of the church with Mary and Joseph and the sweet baby laying in the hay reminds us what Christmas is all about.
Or does it?
In reality, that's not what Bethlehem looked like - not then, not now. When Jesus was born, the barn was more likely a cave and it took months, maybe years, for the three Kings (if they were kings, and if there where three of them) to show up. Today Bethlehem is a tourist destination that is home to about 25,000 people and pilgrims come to the Church of the Nativity where Christ was not born to remember that He was.
It all sounds a little silly, more like Disney than a holy place, but its existence reminds us that many of us are looking for a place where we can connect our lives, our human lives, with God. Someplace where we are confident that He extends his finger to meet ours like He does in Michelangelo's Sistine ceiling. And we think Bethlehem might be one of those this places where the veil between the physical and metaphysical is thin, one of those places where we can touch the finger of God.
This all reminds me of the trips I made to Italy in 2018 and 2025 and why I made them. I went to Italy thinking that Florence, seat of the Renaissance and home a prodigious collection of the Western world's most brilliant talents, might be one of those places. How could Dante, Michelangelo, Brunelleschi, da Vinci, Galileo, and all their compatriots looking to express the glory of God have been able to do what they did if they didn't have a bead on some kind of divinity? They had to have a connection and I wanted to find our what it was.
I was wrong, of course.
Florence has no more connection to God than does Bethlehem. No place on Earth, no place, can help me find God. When we look to earthly places and things to find God, we don't find Him there. We just find more earthly places and things. In our rush to find easy access to Jesus, we forget what He told us.
The kingdom of God is within you. - Luke 17:21.
Within you. We carry access to God around in us. We don't need to go looking for Him anywhere else. That's the reason He came in the first place - to show us what life in communion with God looks like. Not perfect. Not trouble-free, but always accessible if we're looking in the right place and following it.
That's why we take our shoes off when we meet God. Not because He is in the dirt or floor under our feet but because He is in the union of what He put in us and the rest of His creation.
The Lord our God, the Lord is One - Deuteronomy 6:4
We are part of the One that is God - temple of the Holy Spirit (1Cor 3:16, 6:19), the hope of glory (Col 1:27). Bethlehem is sweet, but we don't need it anymore. We have Him.
Photo credit: James Larkin
