O little town of Bethlehem,
How still we see thee lie!
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep
The silent stars go by. – Philips Brooks
If this is the central image we generally have of Bethlehem, it’s certainly a snapshot. This sleepy little town had many faces. Bethlehem is the burial place of Rachel, the wife of the Old Testament patriarch, Jacob (Genesis 48:7) It’s the setting for the Book of Ruth, and the ancestral home of David. It was in Bethlehem that Samuel anointed David to succeed Saul, Israel’s first king. And when the town had fallen to the Philistines, it was from the well at Bethlehem’s gate, that three of David’s men, breaking through the enemy lines in a reckless act of devotion, drew water for their king. (2 Samuel 23) And it was here that Christ was born, here that the shepherds and the magi worshiped him, and here it was that soldiers came and slaughtered all the infant boys in a desperate and vain attempt to murder Jesus.
O little town of Bethlehem,
You are a window on our world.
O Bedlam! - peaceful, war-torn, hopeful and despairing little Bedlam*.How strangely fitting that the Prince of Peace should enter here.
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