Advent reflection

Israel and Palestine today are lands of contrasts, where past and present are juxtaposed in contrasts which are sometimes incongruous and sometimes profound. This lithograph shows a view of Jerusalem from approximately 1890 and shows the essentially rural nature of the area surrounding the Old City at that time.

Nazareth is now a large city, where once, at the time of Christ, it was an obscure village. The Basilica of the Annunciation is a modern Roman Catholic church built on the foundations of an earlier Crusader church. The church has been built over the excavated remains of buildings from the settlement of Jesus’ day and incorporates into this modern building the ancient Grotto of the Annunciation.

At Bethlehem the Church of the Nativity stands alongside a busy central square. Bethlehem is a town relient on tourism, where its holy sites are alongside the food outlets, accommodation and souvenir shops which tourists require and which support the local economy.

The Basilica of the Annunciation straddles and shields remains from ancient Nazareth. At the centre of this modern church are remains of earlier churches and the ancient Grotto of the Annunciation which is thought to be the location where the Annunciation occurred. At the heart, therefore, of the tourist trails and visits there is worship, piety and devotion.

The same mix is found in Bethlehem, where tourists and pilgrims can queue for two hours or more to see or to kiss the site that is traditionally thought to be the location of Christ’s birth and the site of the manger. Among the busyness of this crowded space people kneel in devotion to worship Christ.

The humble events of Jesus’ conception and birth have proved inspirational, spreading around the world, bringing millions to the holy sites and leading to the creation of great art and architecture. The Basilica of the Annunciation is a stunning example of modernist architecture which is sensitive to the site and which enhances worship. Artworks in mosaic, stained glass and stone have been collected there from around the world to tell the story of the Annunciation in a truly global fashion.

I was privileged to see these images as part of the East London Three Faiths Forum's recent Tour of the Holy Land. While in Nazareth with this group, I read the following sonnet about Mary as part of our experience of seeing and reflecting on these sacred sites.

The poet, Malcolm Guite, says of Mary: ‘Mary has been given many titles down the ages and some Christians have disagreed with one another bitterly about her. But equally, in every age and every church she has been, for many Christians, a sign of hope and an inspiration. Her earliest ‘title’, agreed throughout the church in the first centuries of our faith, before the divisions of East and West, Catholic and Protestant, was Theotokos, which means God-Bearer. she is the prime God-Bearer, bearing for us in time the One who was begotten in eternity, and every Christian after her seeks to become in some small way a God-bearer, one whose ‘yes’ to God means that Christ is made alive and fruitful in the world through our flesh and our daily lives, is born and given to another.’

You bore for me the One who came to bless
And bear for all and make the broken whole.
You heard His call and in your open ‘yes’
You spoke aloud for every living soul.
Oh gracious Lady, child of your own child,
Whose mother-love still calls the child in me,
Call me again, for I am lost, and wild
Waves surround me now. On this dark sea
Shine as a star and call me to the shore.
Open the door that all my sins would close
And hold me in your garden. Let me share
The prayer that folds the petals of the Rose.
Enfold me too in Love’s last mystery
And bring me to the One you bore for me.

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Malcolm Guite & Steve Bell - The Singing Bowl & Birth Of A Song.