From the December issue of the Konnoak Door...

Not Jerusalem.  Lowly Bethlehem.
'Twas that gave us Christ to save us.
Not Jerusalem.

-- Hymn 285

There are two ways of doing church today.  One way is to build your church in Jerusalem.  The other way is to build your church in Bethlehem.  In Jerusalem, you gather for the big festivals.  You make your regular pilgrimage to the Temple.  You take your offering to the altar.  And then you return to your home until it is time to return to Jerusalem to visit God once again.  The way of doing church in Bethlehem is very different.  In Bethlehem you look for God to appear in the most unexpected of places.  In humble places.  Out-of-the-way places.  Lowly places, such as a stable.  Church in Bethlehem is not confined to worship in a sanctuary.  It spills out onto the streets.  God is not relegated to a Temple.  God moves with His people on fields of mission to homeless shelters and disaster sites.  To schools and hospitals and hospice homes.  To food pantries and homes for the aged and infirmed.  In Bethlehem, God moves with His people to share the burdens of neighbors who are forgotten and pushed to the margin of society.

In Jerusalem, "church" is all about people visiting God.  In Bethlehem, "church" is all about God visiting the world.  In Bethelehem, God enters the world in human flesh, and Christ is born once again in the lives of those who touch a broken and bruised world with self-giving love.

We know the story well of how the magi first followed the star to Jerusalem but did not find the new-born king there.  To find the Christ they had to travel six miles farther southwest to Bethlehem.  Likewise, the crowds today will always flock to Jerusalem looking for their king, and many will prematurely believe they have found Him there in a religious grandeur coupled with worldly power.  What a shame, for the Savior is born not in Jerusalem, but in Bethlehem, and if we are to find the Christ we seek, our faith will carry us beyond Jerusalem to find Him in a lowly place.

Places like:

-- Alleghany County, a county with one of the highest poverty rates in North Carolina

-- Sunnyside Ministry, where people on the brink of despair find a bit of hope in a bag of groceries and a check for a light bill

-- Ocean Springs, Mississippi, where storm survivors have been living in a state of disrepair for more than three years

-- The Prodigals Community, where people with lives once destroyed by drugs and alcohol are praising God for a new life

-- Konnoak Elementary School, a lifeline for children who would be cold, hungry, and emotionally starved

-- Salem Terrace, where a row of pansies and a conversation with a stranger goes a long way in brightening a person's day

-- The village of a refugee, the home of a neighbor, the room of a child

We've got to be careful this Christmas, and every Christmas.  The temptation is for us to move the manger from Bethlehem to Jerusalem.  How easy it is to carry the manger and place it in a Temple, and Christmas becomes little more than an annual festival that we worship each year.  No, the manger was meant to remain in a stable.  And we, like the magi, are called to look for Christ among the destitute, the lonely, the forgotten people who have been turned away from the inn.  

Where is He who has been born King of the Jews and Savior of the world, for we have seen His star and have come to worship Him.  Where is He?  Not in Jerusalem.  In lowly Bethlehem.

John D. Rights