Bethlehem shepherds don't watch flock but tourists

(The Holy Land 2011, A.D. - Part II)

Today’s Christmas 2011 A.D. is within the 21st century. The birth of Christ is the center of the Gregorian Calendar, which is used all over the world. The Bible is likewise divided into the Old Testament marked B.C. (Before Christ) and the New Testament - A.D. (Anno Domini), Year of the Lord.

Below, I’m reprinting one of Max V. Soliven’s nine-part series on the Holy Land, which he wrote for the Manila Times. It was our first visit to the Holy Land in 1966.

The unholy Christmas in Bethlehem

BETHLEHEM, Jordan, December 25 – When the poet J. Barnby first wrote, “Oh little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie,” he certainly was not thinking of Bethlehem, circa 1965. Yesterday and today, Bethlehem was anything but still. It was a babble of voices speaking every conceivable tongue as almost 30,000 of the devout and the boisterous descended on Bethlehem of Judah to commemorate the Birth of Our Lord almost two millenniums ago.

Joseph and Mary came to Bethlehem from Nazareth far across the hills, with Joseph afoot and Mary riding on a donkey, tradition tells us. Yesterday’s pilgrims came by car and by bus, and as night fell the red tail lights of the vehicles running bumper to bumper made the winding hill roads look as if they were afire.

Alas, Bethlehem’s shepherds no longer watch their flock by night. They watch out for the tourists and waylay them by what is known as the “Shepherds’ Fields” with offerings, not of gold, frankincense or myrrh, but postcards, colored slides, rosaries, crucifixes, camels and donkeys carved out of olive wood, knick-knacks of mother-of-pearl and ornaments of that bituminous limestone called the Dead Sea Stone.

You descend from your car at Manger Square and walk into the Church of the Nativity. Destroyed and rebuilt many times, the shrine is one of the oldest recorded churches in Christendom, having been originally constructed by St. Helena, mother of the Emperor Constantine, around 320 A.D. You enter the edifice by a door so low, one must stoop to gain access. The historical reason is that overenthusiastic pilgrims centuries ago used to ride their horses all the way to the church.

Today, the towering structure, roofed with English oak, supported by the remnants of Byzantine pillars, festooned with silver icons from Russia, hung with incense-burners of silver and gold, and decorated with gold-gilt carved doors of cedar from Lebanon, almost smothers the tiny grotto beneath. Yesterday, it looked like a New York subway station during the rush hour, with tour groups being herded here and there by guides who attempted to outshout each other.

And at each turn, black-robed Greek Orthodox priests impressively bearded like Biblical patriarchs, confronted you with silver platters upheld. “Merry Christmas,” they intoned. “Contribute to the church. Help the church, please.”

Jesus may have driven the money-leaders out of the Temple, but He certainly overlooked a few others.

Souvenir peddlers and police displace the ‘angels’

The actual cave where Christ was born is reached by descending a narrow winding flight of steps, one set of stairs on either side. This time, it was one-way traffic, with dark-blue uniformed Jordanian policemen directing the mob. You are too busy jostling your way through the crowd to think too many holy thoughts, and when you kneel to kiss the ground, marked by the silver outlines of a star, where Jesus was reputed to have been laid in swaddling clothes, the policeman nearby taps you on the shoulder. ‘All right, all right, you are finished already. Move on. Move on.’

Midnight mass at the Bethlehem shrine proved no more tranquil and spiritually uplifting. Only those holding special tickets were permitted into the Church of St. Catherine (adjoining the cave of the Nativity) to hear the pontifical high Mass, the culmination of a day of processions and celebrations. A few lucky hundreds managed to secure tickets, while several thousands, stamping their feet against the bitter cold outside, struggled to push their way in. Two fist-fights broke out within the church during the services, while outside a furious argument erupted between soldiers and policemen on the one hand and a group of angry civilians. If there was “peace on earth” on Christmas Eve, it must have been somewhere else.

The climax of the evening was provided by a frantic lady tourist, who rushed up to a policeman and breathlessly complained to him that a bag snatcher had just grabbed her companion’s money purse. “There he goes,” the woman cried pointing to the man who was shouldering his way from the scene in the distance. “Huh, what?” The policeman asked, raising his eyebrows and shrugging. He evidently did not intend to spend Christmas running after some pickpocket, who was only making a living.

The Christians fight among themselves

The truth is that in the olden days, Muslim and Christian armies fought over this shrine, but nowadays, the Christians only fight among themselves. From the 16th century, the Catholic Franciscans and the Greek Orthodox clergy battled over the custody of the cave of the Nativity until the Ottoman Turks decreed that the Greeks should be put in charge. Although the Orthodox priests now administer the shrine, each Christian denomination has a corner of it. The Greeks “control” the location in the cave, where Christ was reputed to have been born. On the left, however, the Catholics (here called the “Latin Church”) supervise a replica of the stone manger in which the Babe was laid. Upstairs, in the Church of the Nativity proper, the Armenian Christians have an allotted altar. They can occupy only so many square feet of space, and no more.

Even a “modus vivendi” for the celebration of Christmas Mass had to be reached among the five disputing Christian sects. The Roman Catholic and Eastern Rite churches conduct their services in the area of the shrine on December 24-25. The YMCA has services in the Field of the Shepherds on the edge of town. The Anglicans hold their service in the Church’s courtyard. The Greek Orthodox, Coptic and Syrian Orthodox churches hold their services on January 6 and 7, while the Armenians hold theirs on January 18 to 19 to officially end the Christmas season.

None of the Christian groups apparently trust each other. Each night, all through the year, by common agreement, it is a Muslim Jordanian policeman who guards the Church and shrine.

Bethlehem, whose original population of 7,000 has been swelled by an influx of 37,000 Arab refugees, who settled there following the partition of Palestine (between Israel and Jordan) in 1948, lives literally on the commercial aspect of Christmas and Easter, and the dollars spent by thousands of Christian pilgrims, who annually flock to Judea to commemorate those two holy seasons. The city authorities try their best to project Christmas – the twisted pine tree fronting Manger Square is bedecked with colored lights, and from the tall Minaret of the Bethlehem Mosque loudspeakers blare out recordings of Christmas carols and Negro spirituals.

The Christmas story, forever old, forever new in the hearts of mankind

And yet, one who journeys to Bethlehem to seek the solace and joy of Christmas, finds only what is ersatz and artificial. The elbowing and shoving crowds, the aggressive postcard and souvenir peddlers, the jealously guarded shrines. There is a feeling of bleak disappointment as you walk the cold, stone-paved streets of Bethlehem. The people of Bethlehem have not changed, it seems, since the day they refused Mary and Joseph room at the inn. And, suddenly, you look up, and see the Star. It shines there in the dark December sky just as it did 1,965 years ago. It is then that you know that Christmas can be found nowhere, unless one finds it in his heart. This is the story, forever old and forever new, that began in Bethlehem, but now belongs to all mankind.