Not the palace but a cave

Christ Mass 2024
St Paul’s Church, Ipswich
25 December

IMAGE: Public domain. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Herodium_02.jpg

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For those familiar with the geography of Bethlehem there is a powerful theological message hidden in plain sight every time the Christmas story is rehearsed.

As one stands down the street from the Church of the Nativity and looks towards Jerusalem, there is an odd-shaped hill about 5km away from the place where Jesus was born.

That unusual looking hill is in fact an artificial mound created to disguise and protect the personal palace of Herod the Great, ruler of Jerusalem around the time that Jesus was born.

In the centre of the artificial hill was a multi-story fortress which offered Herod and his guests luxurious accommodation and desirable security.

SOURCE: Archaeology Illustrated. Used under licence.

The top of the palace was 758m above sea level, so just a few metres above the highest point in Jerusalem some 12 km to the north.

Herodion could be seen from all directions, and it offered surveillance over everything in its neighbourhood.

At the base of this secure desert palace, Herod created a precinct described by the Jewish historian, Josephus, as a pleasure park with water features in the desert and structures that displayed Herod’s wealth.

Such were the powers that be around the time that Jesus was born in Bethlehem.

But the angels were not sent to Herodion.

In the limestone hills around Bethlehem, there were groups of shepherds eking out a living for their families by running goats and sheep in the semi-desert landscape.

They had no grand structures, just a few rows of field stones at the entrance to the natural caves where they kept their flocks of an evening.

SOURCE: https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/matpc.03289

There were no aqueducts bringing water from mountain top reservoirs to these simplest of dwellings.

There was no ostentatious display of wealth and power. 

Some of the shepherds could see the desert palace of the murderous king, and on a still night the sounds of his parties would drift across the hillsides to their dark caves.

In one of those caves, on the edge of the little village of Bethlehem overlooking an area now called Beit Sahour, a child was born.

A child whose birth we celebrate some 14,000km away and 2,000 years later today.

His mother had retired to the area of the cave where the animals were kept. She was seeking some privacy while she gave birth to her first child.

She and Joseph were not seeking a place to stay, but for some privacy while Mary gave birth.

In a cave with only the animals as witnesses to this most amazing moment.

As Mary laboured to bring Jesus into the world, I wonder if she could hear the sounds of night time celebrations from Herod’s party palace just 5km away?

For sure, Herod was oblivious to the birth of the child who would later hold sway over the hearts of millions of people across time and space, cultures and ethnicities.

As he enjoyed the dancing girls, Herod missed the biggest moment of his entire career.

But the angels did not go the Herodion.

The angels went to motley shepherds who were keeping watch over their flocks safely tucked away in the caves behind them.

The good news of Emmanuel, God coming among us to save and to transform our world, was given to the shepherds, not the tyrant in the palace.

The angels came to the shepherds and sent them to another cave on the edge of Bethlehem where they would find a babe wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a stone food trough.

Many years later, the adult Jesus would say to the crowds:

What did you go out into the wilderness to look at? A reed shaken by the wind? What then did you go out to see? Someone dressed in soft robes? Look, those who wear soft robes are in royal palaces. What then did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. [Matthew 11:7-9]

He was speaking of John the Baptist, but the image works for us tonight as well.

Where do we look for Emmanuel?

We shall not find him in the palace, but in those places where powerful people least expect to see God at work among us.

May this church be such a place here in the heart of Ipswich.

And may our homes be such places—ordinary places—where love abounds and the Christ Child is to be found.