I lit my first Advent candle in Bethlehem as a child. This year, I joined the Red Candle movement because I realized how the global church still sings of Bethlehem with affection but rarely sees the people who live there today.
That truth struck me again this week, when more than 1,000 U.S. pastors traveled to the Holy Land for a summit in Jerusalem, without going to Bethlehem. They stood within minutes of the town at the heart of the incarnation yet never entered it. They held mass prayer at the Western Wall but never stepped inside a church.
In Bethlehem, Advent for me began with a white candle burning above ancient stone in the Grotto of the Nativity. As I grew up in the nearby hills, lighting that candle each year carried a simple prayer: God still sees Bethlehem. God still brings peace to Bethlehem.
Pain has always been part of Bethlehem’s story—and part of mine. A family traveling under political pressure, a town strained by empire and occupation (Luke 2:2)—many of us know that world intimately. The Bethlehem that offered Joseph and Mary no room feels familiar to families today who navigate checkpoints, violence, and uncertainty.
Herod’s fear-driven violence and the terror that sent families fleeing into the night echo in the stories of those still uprooted by forces beyond their control. The Holy Family’s flight to Egypt is not a distant drama—it reads like our own.
But the shepherds, young men and women living on the margins, recognized God’s peace before the halls of power did. Their wonder and fragile hope still live in our communities, where ordinary believers grasp the goodness of God long before the powerful acknowledge it.
Advent does not romanticize this suffering; it dignifies it. Through Jesus, God chose to enter a story marked by displacement and fear—and he continues to do so today.
This is why I struggle to understand why pastors and leaders who know the truth—who know that Bethlehem still breathes, that Palestinian Christians still worship there, that families in Gaza still cling to Christ—remain silent.
Pastoral faithfulness requires moral clarity. As horrific as Oct. 7 was for Jewish families, the grief of this land is also Muslim and Christian, stretching across decades of displacement and unmet longing. Scripture does not ask us to choose whose tears matter. It commands us to mourn with all who mourn.
Bethlehem is not a sentimental backdrop. It is a living community of believers who continue to worship, teach, and serve even as their numbers dwindle. My extended family still lives in the same neighborhoods where Christians have prayed for centuries. Their resilience 2,000 years after Jesus’ birth continues Christians’ faithful witness in Jesus’ birthplace. This is a city that has never stopped worshiping since the gospel was first proclaimed.
The Red Candle Movement reminded me of this truth.
