But first let me take you to Bethlehem. For Bethlehem is the locus of tonight’s gospel and features in the hymns. But this Bethlehem is not the picture postcard Bethlehem on the Christmas card or in the school or parish pageant but rather to the real place, the Palestinian town situated on the occupied West Bank of the Palestinian State. Modern Bethlehem has seen its share of death in recent years after two Intafadas and continuing tensions in that tense part of the Middle East. But Bethlehem is the place of the birth of Jesus. An impressive sixth century church stands over the traditional site of Jesus’ birth.

The church was built by the Emperor Justinian over a shrine erected earlier by the Emperor Constantine. It is an ancient and holy site where the prayers and devotions of countless pilgrims have been made down the centuries. The remarkable thing is that this great 6th century church has survived the vicissitudes of the ages. But what struck me so powerfully on my first visit to Bethlehem back in the Eighties was how close Bethlehem is to Jerusalem.

In my imagination Bethlehem was a long way from Jerusalem. After all one was to do with birth and one with the death of Jesus. They were very different places. But in fact Bethlehem is like from here to Staten Island, some five miles away from Jerusalem. Modern day Bethlehem is more like a suburb of Jerusalem than a separate town. While Bethlehem was traditionally a majority Christian Arab town, today the Christian Arabs are in a minority and sadly decreasing due to emigration. The place of Jesus’ birth and the place of Jesus’ death are cheek by jowl as we say.

But when you reflect on it birth and death are often related. Only last Sunday from this pulpit we heard alarming statistics regarding the death rate of mothers in childbirth as well as of the high infant mortality rates in many developing countries, deaths that could be reduced dramatically by relatively simple means. Even in parts of these United States the infant mortality rate is still far too high for a developed country.

But birth and death are linked in more subtle ways. Theologically the only reason we celebrate Christmas at all is because Jesus died on the Cross and rose again on the third day! Quite seriously there is general agreement among biblical scholars that the gospels were written backwards as it were. Some would argue that all four gospels are Passion narratives with introductions. That is the account of the suffering, death and Resurrection of Jesus is what came first in light of which the account of his life and his birth became important. When you think of it the only reason we would visit Lamar, Missouri, was because President Truman happened to be born there or that the Theodore Roosevelt Museum is located nearby on East 19th Street is because the great man was born and lived there. Births are remembered especially in light of what happens to the person in later life. And so it was with Jesus. We celebrate his birth because looking back through the experience of his saving death and resurrection his birth took on new significance. It was the beginning of God’s great act of identification with and the salvation of humankind. So in the New Testament narrative the birth and death of Jesus are inextricably bound up together.

As I trust we all know tonight is the beginning of the Twelve Days of Christmas, the season we refer to as Christmastide. But even though it is the season to celebrate Christ’s birth the tradition of the Church was not afraid to deal with the fact of death. For instance Saturday is the Feast of St Stephen, the first Christian martyr, the first Christian to emulate the Christ in his dying, and the third day after Christmas is by tradition the Feast of the Holy Innocents, the children of Bethlehem who died as a result of King Herod’s paranoia. The point being made by these commemorations is simply that this Christ child whose birth we honor is one and the same as the one who died on the Cross of Calvary. And in a sense that death is read back into the story as we see in the slaughter of the innocents.

The same point is made in some artistic representations of the Nativity scene where the manger becomes an altar of sacrifice. In like manner the poet TS Eliot made the point so well in his poem, The Journey of the Magi, which concludes: “were we led all that way for Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly, We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death, But had thought they were different; this Birth was Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death. We returned to our places, these Kingdoms, But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation, With an alien people clutching their gods. I should be glad of another death.”