The Old Story Made Real and New

Bethlehem, we often forget, is a real place where people are still born and grow up and go to work and die.  It is a city in Palestine, and like it was in Jesus’ day, it is occupied and controlled in large part by a foreign power.  Last year a group from St. Paul’s Church in Auckland, New Zealand created a tremendous video that reminds us of the place–real, physical and historical–where Christ was born.  It is by looking at that place, with its current concerns and problems, that we come to see more deeply the world Christ entered into to bring his kingdom.