Christmas Where It Happened

Frequent flier miles brought me to Jerusalem, a gift from a kind friend. She had arranged for me to share an apartment with a Belgian student who was studying at Hebrew University. I was looking forward to Christmas in Jerusalem.

As I took a cab from Tel Aviv, I wondered if David, Solomon, even Paul had passed by the orange groves, eucalyptus trees and stands of cedars I saw along the way. Perhaps they were too new--maybe only a few centuries old. I was entering a dimension where old and new were inseparably mingled, where prophetic words sprung to life.

At first glimpse, the city bore the look of an unfinished masterpiece awaiting completion. The landscape was a patchwork quilt of bright, new buildings and worn, weathered structures, interspersed with rocky lots and ravines, a jumble left by thousands of years of inhabitants. The city was white with buildings and walls shaped from limestone, the rock mandated by law for all buildings.

The apartment I was staying in was small and spare but clean and functional. The walls were white, the rock floor cold. To warm the water for a shower I had to turn on a switch. It took about an hour for the water to warm up. Heat in the apartment came on only from 7 to 10 p.m. It was a cold time of year.

My host Ingrid had warmed up the apartment with symbols of Christmas. She’d decorated a tiny tree sparingly with lacy silver garlands and wooden ornaments carved from olive wood. A sprig of pine and red pyracantha berries tied together by a red ribbon was hanging on a wall.

I was curious to see what Christmas in Israel would be like.

The next day I went walking through the city. I found no festive twinkling lights, no Christmas trees, no carols being piped into department stores, no advertisements for presents, no Santas anywhere.

I knew that I would like Christmas in Jerusalem. None of that was there when the Savior was born either.

But the words were here, long before he was born.

Wonderful. Counselor. The mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. Immanuel--with us is God.

The leader of the local Mormon congregation invited me to the annual “shepherd’s fields” event, taking place outside Bethlehem. He kindly offered to take me there with other visitors.

We arrived. The evening air was cool and quiet, the ground rocky and terraced with limestone walls, the hillside scattered with olive trees. The sky was flooded with brilliant gold light, tinged with reddish orange, just as the sun touched the edge of the horizon. It looked as if the sun had melted, washing its liquid colors down the sky and over the Earth.

An old Arab shepherd, staff in hand, walked slowly across the rocky fields, leading a dozen or so shaggy sheep across the uneven terrain. He seemed ageless. The man and the sheep disappeared into the distance.

I looked out over the dusky fields where the widowed Ruth had gleaned wheat after faithfully following her mother-in-law, Naomi, to Bethlehem. Naomi’s God of Israel became Ruth’s God. Ruth was the great-grandmother of David, through whose lineage the Savior would come.

Stars were waking through the darkness of the night. We gathered close to the bonfire, seeking warmth.

The night the Savior was born, I suspect there was little heat. No comfort the rocky soil would yield. No nicely pressed sheets. No doctors attending mother and child.

Yet angels sliced through the heavens to the Earth, rejoicing at the birth, and the dark skies celebrated with new light that anyone, anywhere, could see. The angels spoke words of peace and praise for God, mingling with the words of the prophets that hung in the air. I listened that night in the fields. I listen still.

With his stripes we are healed. I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands.

The Word made flesh.

Years have passed since my Christmas in Israel. I’m blessed with a full-time furnace, hot showers on demand, the holly and the ivy that help make the season bright. Our family surrounds itself with the sweet symbols of the birth of our Savior.

But the warm brightness in my soul I carry with me in all seasons. It’s graven not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God. Not in tables of stone, but in the fleshy tables of the heart.

Kathleen Lubeck Peterson is a former seminary teacher for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

On Faith is a forum for Orange County clergy and others to offer their views on religious topics of general interest. Submissions, which will be published at the discretion of The Times and are subject to editing, should be delivered to Orange County religion page editor Jack Robinson.