Scriptural journeys through Advent to Christmas

By Patricia Kasten
Compass Associate Editor

At this time of year, many people travel - some to a new place for a vacation, while many others return home to visit.

When each of them travels, though, they use a map - either made of paper or of memory. Along the way are special places - towns to stop, sites to see and people to visit.

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Our Scripture readings for the last weeks of Advent and for Christmas take us on just such a journey - to sites related to the birth of Jesus Christ.

Nazareth

The familiar journey begins in Galilee in Nazareth, the home of Mary. Ancient Nazareth sat on a hillside overlooking the beautiful Esdraelon Valley, also called Jezreel. In Hebrew, Jezreel meant "God sows or plants." And Nazareth means a branch or a shoot, as that of a flowering plant. Both remind us of the prophecy of the Messiah in Isaiah, a reading we hear in the A Cycle of Advent: "A shoot shall sprout from the stump of Jesse, and from his roots a bud shall blossom" (11:1). (We are now in the B Cycle of liturgical readings.)

Ein Karem

From Nazareth, we follow Mary who "traveled to the hill country in haste to a town of Judah, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth" (Lk 1:39-40, Gospel for Dec. 12). While Elizabeth's town is not named, tradition says it is the town of Ein Karem, located just west of Jerusalem.

In Arabic, the name of this birthplace of John the Baptist means "spring in the vineyard." The vineyard was a common image in both Jesus' teaching and in First Testament images referring to God's care for his people. (For example, see the readings for Oct. 2.)

Galilee

Mary later returned to Galilee - whose name means "circle" or "a ring." There, she completed her marriage covenant to Joseph and they began their married household.

Shortly after, though, she and Joseph again journeyed forth and traveled down the Jordan River from Galilee into the land of Judah.

Judea

Judah was also at that time called Judea, or "the land of the Jews," by the Romans who ruled there at the time. Jews like Joseph and Mary, however, called the land "Judah," after one of the 12 sons of Jacob. (The tribes of Israel are named after these 12 men. Of the 12 tribes, only Judah and Benjamin remained loyal to the House of David during exile and Judah was the first tribe to return to Jerusalem from that exile. The name of Judah in Hebrew means "praise" and derives from his mother's words at his birth, "Now I will give grateful praise to the Lord" (Gen. 29:35).

Jerusalem

Mary and Joseph would have traveled from Galilee down the Jordan Valley and past the city of Jerusalem. The name of this capital city, dating back to at least 1400 B.C., means "city of peace." We first hear about this city in Genesis, when Abraham meets its king, Melchizedek, the king of Salem and a priest of God the Most High (14:18-20). Melchizedek, whose name means "king of justice," has long been viewed as an early image of what Christ became. "Christian tradition considers Melchizedek, "priest of God Most High," as a prefiguration of the priesthood of Christ, the unique "high priest after the order of Melchizedek" (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1544).

Bethlehem

Moving past this city of peace (which has often been anything but peaceful), we follow Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem, just a few miles south of the Jerusalem. Bethlehem is a Hebrew name meaning "house of bread" and this town does still lie in an agricultural area. It was in Bethlehem that Ruth from Moab met Boaz during the barley harvest, married him and became the great-grandmother of King David (Book of Ruth).

Interestingly, as The Catholic Encyclopedia notes, Bethlehem, the birthplace of David, is also known by its Arabic name Bet lahm, or "house of flesh." Later in life, Jesus, born in Bethlehem, would say - in the Bread of Life discourse - that "unless you eat of the flesh of the Son of Man and drink of his blood, you do not have life within you" (Jn 6:53).

Egypt

From Bethlehem, Joseph took Mary and the baby and fled to Egypt - the land from which Moses the Deliverer came, leading God's people to the Promised Land. From there, the Holy Family eventually returned to Nazareth in Galilee, the land named for circles. Just as the story of the Nativity circles us between Galilee and Jerusalem, so did Jesus' own life and ministry draw a circle between Galilee and Jerusalem, and that circle's ever-expanding curves brought us to the Promised Land of God's Kingdom revealed on earth.