Christmas in Bethlehem: A time of needed hope for Palestinian Christians
(The Christian Science Monitor) Under a stained-glass window depicting the angel’s joyful tidings of Jesus’s birth, candles flickered and a Christmas tree twinkled with red lights as worshipers at Bethlehem Christmas Lutheran Church, nestled just off a narrow cobblestone road, joined in singing traditional Christmas songs in Arabic.
“We are very happy; Christmas means a lot to us,” said Sami, a Bethlehem native who now lives in Jerusalem and sometimes has trouble getting home through the Israeli checkpoint. “All these songs help us hope that we will overcome.”
Bethlehem today hardly resembles the pastoral little town described in the Bible as Jesus’s birthplace.
