Christmas is a story of hope
From our US edition
We descended, one weary traveler at a time, down an ancient stone staircase that winds underneath one of the oldest churches in the world. When we arrive in the tiny grotto, we sing Silent Night, our faces dimly lit by the light of a single lantern. This is where many believe a peasant couple, traveling for the Roman census, gave birth to the baby Jesus as described in the second chapter of Luke’s gospel. The Church of the Nativity, commissioned around 330 AD by Constantine, was destroyed by an invading army in 529 AD and then rebuilt by Justinian. Situated in perhaps the most highly contested piece of real estate in the world, it hosts millions of pilgrims every year. This would have been a surprise to the Bethlehem of Jesus’s day.
