Part 1: Christmas Eve

This Christmas has been a unique one in many ways. Every year, each Christmas is a little different, but this one is definitely a statistical outlier.

Most of the reason can be wrapped up in the "who" and the "where." While I have been outside of Montana for parts of the Christmas season before, it was rare, and I've never before been outside of the states. More than that, I've never before spent Christmas away from all my family.

This year I spent Christmas in Israel. Ironically, Israel, the place where the first Christmas took place, is rather apathetic at best, hostile at worst, towards Christmas today. In spite of the lack of perceivable Christmas cheer in the air, I was blessed to have several good friends in the area to keep me company over the holidays.

On Christmas Eve (morning) several of us set out from Jerusalem, intent on walking to Bethlehem. Sometimes, in reading the Bible, it is easy to get a distorted view of distances in Israel. Bethlehem is roughly 5 miles south of Jerusalem, and most of that is fairly level, along the "Patriarchal Ridge Route." Walking was in itself quite an experience. We had to go through the check point, and then we walked along the wall for a considerable ways. I've spent very little time in Bethlehem and thus have had little chance to observe the wall. It is a poignant reminder of the distinct lack of peace in this land where the Prince of Peace was born.

We left the wall behind as we ventured deeper into the modern city of Bethlehem. In contrast to most of the rest of the West Bank, the area around Bethlehem still has a large Christian population. Christmas decorations were found in abundance, as well as shops blaring Christmas music in various languages. It was not really what I had expected. One would think, in an area so important in religion, that one would find religious expressions of celebration. It was in fact, rather western and secular. The blaring songs, while recognizably Christmasy in flavor, rarely mentioned Christ. The decorations, while again, festive, focused on Santa (or occasionally Dora the Explorer). And, to top it off, the Christmas cards we got from the Palestinian police had swords and the Dome of the Rock on them (wishing us a Merry Christmas 2010).

We watched several scout troops parading, most of the with flags, bagpipes, and drums. They reminded me that we were not in America, which was good.

When the parade had finished we went up to Manger Square. We sat outside the Church of the Nativity for a while and ate lunch. We went inside for a brief time. The line to see the groto area was excessively long (and most of us had already seen it) so we skipped that part.

After exiting the church, we set out to find Shepherd's Field, in Beit Sahour. I had never been there before, but apparently there are two locations and churches that commemorate the site where the angels appeared to the shepherds. We wound up at the Greek Orthodox site. The Shepherds, if this was indeed their field, unfortunately left no trace of their shepherding. There were some fun Byzantine ruins and caves to explore, along with a nice little chapel. It was quiet and park-like and did overlook some fields, so it had a nice feel to it, removed from the chaos of modern Bethlehem. I got to read the story in Luke 2 to the rest of the group as we looked out over the fields.

From there we made the trek home. We were all fairly tired at this point, and the way to Bethlehem was all up hill, so we caught a bus which took us most of the way back to Manger Square. From there we walked to the check point where most of us caught a bus back to Jerusalem.

By the time I got home it was nearly dark, but the day wasn't over. I had agreed to go with Emily to the house of a family she knew for Christmas Eve dinner. It was good to meet more Americans in the land, and I had a chance to play with their children. I suppose it made up a little for not being able to have any of my little cousins around for the holiday.

When I got home for that I worked on preparing some food for Christmas morning...and then I went to church.

The service at St. Andrew's Scottish Presbyterian Church started at 11:15. I found some people there that I knew and sat by them. It was a nice service. The Christmas carols were interesting. Most of them I knew the words...or the tune...or both...but not necessarily together. We ended up singing "O Come, all Ye Faithful" to the tune of "Angels we have heard on high," which is not as easy as it might sound. The church seems to often sing songs to different tunes, so I'm not quite sure if it's a Scottish thing, or if it's specific to the church, or if it's occasionally organist error. Then we sang "Silent Night," except the translation was quite unlike what I've always heard in America. That in itself was quite interesting. Then there were lots of people, most of the whispering to each other in Hebrew throughout the service. I'm fairly certain some of them were there either out of curiosity or as part of a school assignment.

Jewish Teacher: B'seder, students, your assignment this weekend is to visit one of those crazy Christian churches for one of their Christmas services.

Student: Are you sure we'll be safe? They're crazy!

Teacher: Yes, crazy, but mostly harmless. They'll just sing Christmas Carols and talk about peace, joy, and love.

Student: Christmas Carols? What are those?

Teacher: Oh, they're songs that they sing once a year that no one knows the second verse to. But they'll pretend!

Student: Why do they do this?

Teacher: Beats me! Christians are just strange like that. But make sure you pay special attention and take notes. I want you to write down your impression and turn them in first thing Sunday morning.

Student: How long do they have to be?

Teacher: I DON'T CARE.*

*Note: This last statement is a verbatim quote from an actual Jewish professor of mine when asked a similar question.

When the service ended it was Christmas Day...which will have to wait for the next post.