Day 17 - Bethlehem

I think they're taking it easy on us during these days while we're staying in Jerusalem. We didn't leave until 8:00 and we were done by 4:30. And all this without having to pack up and move hotels each day! Its a nice change of pace.

Today we spent most of the day in the West Bank, Bethlehem in particular. When one sees the wall that Israel is building on TV, it doesn't look very daunting, but up close, its a massive structure. We had to pass through this to get into Bethelehem. There are guard towers every so often along the wall, and on the Palestinian side there is much protest art painted or posted on the wall. We didn't seem to have much problem passing from Israel into the West Bank, but this is not the case for everyone.

We started the day at the Herodion Fortress. It was Herod's fortress close to home and the place of his burial. Amazingly, his tomb has only been found in the last couple of weeks! So not much has been excavated around it yet. One of the more amazing things about this fortress was its later appropriation by the Jewish Rebels in the Bar Kokhba revolt. They dug numerous tunnels through the mountain and would pop out to surprise the Roman soldiers, then jump back in to elude capture. The tunnels are quite extensive and reminded many of us of the Viet Cong system of tunnels.

Our main attraction for the day was the Church of the Nativity. The church actually looked more like a fortress than a church (and it had been used as such by about 20 Palestinian gunmen a number of years ago). The Church hosted the traditional site of Jesus' birth and manger (picture at left) . They are two different spots but they are both under the altar in a cave. I was disappointed to not find any sheep, camels, or wise men.

Attached to the Church of the Nativity is a Roman Catholic Church called St. Catherine's Church. Below this church is the tomb of Jerome, a third century bishop and translator of the Latin Vulgate version of the Bible. The cave where he worked on the Vulgate was near his tomb, not the most inspiring workplace.

Before lunch at The Lutheran Christmas Church, we made a shopping stop in Bethlehem at a place that specialized particularly in olive wood products. The craftsmanship on many of the manger scenes was spectacular and the price showed it (we're talking many grand here...I'm sure that just made a couple of husbands out there quite nervous).

After lunch we made our last stop at the Garden Tomb. You may remember that we already visited one tomb of Jesus, the Holy Sepulchre. Well, this Garden Tomb is a fairly recent (last 100 years) alternative site. It is set in a garden and boasts the possible Golgotha rock near or on which Jesus was crucified as well as the tomb. It was a bit "kitchy" in the words of one of our team members. But it was certainly more what one imagines visually than the "tomb" in the Holy Sepulchre church. I have now checked both places, and I can witness that Jesus' body is in neither tomb (pictures of the last one were in a previous post...but given the rather untomb-like nature of the "tomb" it probably didn't register with one reader of this blog that is was a picture of an empty tomb. It looks more like an altar).

I have no pithy random thought from today. Overall, I continue to wrestle with each of these sites. I am certainly learning about what Jesus' life might have been like and am gaining new perspectives on a variety of biblical stories. But I am not having spiritual experiences at these sites. Maybe that is because we worship and follow a risen savior whose Spirit goes with us where ever we go. These lands are certainly holy by tradition, but by God's grace, any place can be made holy where God's Spirit resides. Thanks be to God.