The Hidden Celebration

Part 4 of Honeymoon of the Heart, a revisiting to the Holy Land 2012

By the time we passed our third gas station, and after having utilized our seven cumulative words in Arabic repeatedly (thank you, can you help, peace, welcome, friend), we found a nondescript single-story cinder block building that not only looked empty but also looked like my ticket back to the hotel and a long-awaited slumber.

Pastor Lisa, confident, cheerful, and operating in an assuredness that heaven opens doors before people who are in God’s plan, invited us to unload from the small passenger van and join her in the building that looked nothing like a celebration.

Entering the double glass doors, we found a registration table and three people who could've been greeters but who were just as likely guards. Our group, Lisa, her right-hand person named Al, a pastor and his wife from Guatemala, two missions leaders from South Africa, and me, stood there as she smiled, greeted the greeter-guards, and asked them if this was the place we were supposed to be. Like the Red Sea of confusion and needle-in-a-haystack searching opened before us, a second small, solid, single door opened and what lay behind took my mind a full moment (or still now, a decade) to process. This was the place we were supposed to be, and apparently Lisa had said the magic words.

Behind the single, nondescript door was a banquet hall laid out exquisitely as if awaiting a visit from the king. Or the queen. Or a duchess or prince or royalty of some extravagant royal fashion. Long, gauzy, shimmery white fabric draped from a common centerpiece in the ceiling, studded with lights and sparkle and creating a cloud-like dream above us. Rows of 50 or more 10-person rectangular tables filled the room, each swathed in the same shimmery white fabric. Each chair had a custom-made covering in white, festooned with bright blue ribbons, elegant fabric just grazing the floor. Row of chairs welcomed visitors to come, sit, and not only dine but feast at the tables before them.

This short, squatty, nondescript cinderblock building opened like a storybook to a celebration dinner of the most extravagant detail. Welcoming royalty, this place, the first stop on my Honeymoon of the Heart, looked like the most elegant wedding reception I’d ever seen. It was beyond, in fact, anything I’d ever seen.

“I want to show you something,” the voice echoed in my heart.

Could it be possible that this invitation to come away, this invitation to trust, watch and listen, could start with a celebration… a wedding… a feast?

We sat. In wonder we visited. We waited. And then, like the Be Our Guest scene from a Disney movie, tray after tray after platter after platter of decadent Middle Eastern and Mediterranean treats unfolded before us. Hummus and pita and tzatziki and kebabs and eggplant and topiaries of all the finest fruits filled our table. We laughed and sampled and shared in delight, trying dish after dish, mesmerized and not knowing why exactly we were there or what to expect next. When we’d finished all we possibly could consume, the plates scooted to the side and, to our amazement, the second serving began. Already content, we were lavished with lamb and chicken, pilaf and roasted veggies of every kind.

It was a feast, a preparation feast, we learned, there in the Palestinian Territories, in Bethlehem, with hundreds of Palestinian Arab Christians celebrating the Jewish Feast of the Tabernacles and the upcoming celebration on the other side of a razor wire-topped wall in Jerusalem.

That night, among hundreds of people, dozens of cultures and countless languages, I learned that this celebration was indeed fit for a king, a coming together of people from around the globe to honor the upcoming Jewish religious observances. Contrary to what I'd been told in my North American, Post-9/11 world view, here in this place cultures came together across countries and cultures to celebrate the same thing. In solidarity, in worship, and in praise, speaker after speaker that night lifted offerings of prayer, gratitude and grace. In the kaleidoscope of languages spoken, I understood very little, but I clearly understood this moment was very special, that my Honeymoon of the Heart was apparently starting with a wedding feast, and that across the world, “Hallelujah” rings in the same language regardless of tongue, tribe, or table.

It. Was. Beautiful. It was surprising and indescribable. It rocked my biased, assumptive, WASPy world. And that world continued to get rocked for the next 13 days.

From here on out I will share with you mostly direct quotes and journal entries from that trip into the land called Holy so many years ago. . I went to sleep that night in awe, thanks, and wonder. The next morning I woke up in Bethlehem, The City of David, the homeland of Boaz and Ruth and shepherds who once watched their flocks by night. And, most stunningly, the town where a long time ago a baby was born and his momma had no choice but to put him in a manger to sleep.

September 30, 2012

"For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord."

Luke 2:11

Woke up this morning in the City of David, about a mile from the birthplace of Jesus Christ. I look out my bedroom window and see shadows of shepherds and memories of days gone by in the surrounding hills. I close my ears, drowning out the sounds of taxi cabs and morning commuters, and instead listen closely for angels to sing out "fear not, for I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people."

Already, I see the "all people" to whom those promises were made. Last night we were blessed and surprised; we thought we were going to a regular church service but instead joined a holy celebration, a feast. We joined our friends from Africa and Guatemala, went to a Palestinian Arab Christian church where the special speaker was Indonesian and we celebrated the beginning of the Feast of the Tabernacles, a Jewish week-long celebration. There, together with "all people" we celebrated the one thing that binds--the Messiah, the One born in this city who would (although the shepherds didn't know it on that starry night) change the world.

As the service went on in a rainbow of languages, I learned last night that there are two things universal: "hallelujah" and love.

I woke up this morning in Bethlehem, the birthplace of my King.