90 miles! Joseph and a very pregnant Mary travelled 90 miles from Nazareth to Bethlehem. In movies and paintings, Joseph is usually shown leading a donkey bearing Mary on its back. Yet, Luke is not that specific. He simply writes that Joseph “went there” with Mary. They would have gone to Bethlehem along the Jordan Valley. The travel would have been difficult, but scenic. It would have been difficult because Mary would have been in a fragile state. Their baggage would have been heavy with things needed for a long and risky trip, things like food and cooking utensils.  At that time, the Jordan Valley was well used. They would have had company. They would still, however, have been susceptible to bandits and cutthroats. Their minds would have been fraught with worries about the future. If they made it to Bethlehem, where would they stay? What if Mary went into labor on the way and in a deserted area, where there was no one around to help? What if the long journey was too much for Mary and the baby? What if she miscarried? These might have been some of their difficulties and worries.

Yet, the Jordan Valley is a beautiful place. The trip would have given them a change from the scenery of obscure little Nazareth. They would have heard the river Jordan’s watery music. They would have walked on ground dappled with soft, green grass. The vegetation around them would have been lush. They would have seen bushes swollen with sap, and swaying deliriously in the breeze. They would have seen ancient sycamores like pillars holding up the dome of a deep blue sky. The warble of wrens and the rustle of leaves would have soothed them. The alluring fragrances of jasmines and roses heavily buttered with white and red would have drawn them in. Indeed, it would have been a beautiful journey.

It is also profoundly meaningful. In the First Testament, Abraham and Jacob would have undertaken a very similar adventure. Moreover, Jesus took that same road to Jerusalem. There, He was tried, beaten, crucified and rose from the dead. The Holy Family made that pilgrimage for Jesus to be born. Jesus will make it again to die.

During this Advent, we go with the Holy Family. While travelling, we sometimes think about where we have come from and where we are going. We think about what we have left behind, and we anticipate what is to follow. What is the road that the Holy Family leaves behind? They leave behind the Emperor Augustus who issued the decree that the whole Roman world should be registered. He was the most powerful man in the world. An ancient inscription hails him as the savior who bestows peaceful order. When the Gospel of Luke was being written, there was a cult that glorified him as the “benefactor of the whole world.” As we journey with the Holy Family, we leave behind worldly wealth, beauty, royalty, power and pomposity.

The Holy Family even leaves behind Jerusalem, the religious and political heart of Judaism. Should not Jerusalem be the city of David? Yet, Luke and the prophet Micah point to Bethlehem as that city. About Bethlehem, Micah prophesied: “you are one of the little clans of Judah, [but] from you shall come one who is to rule in Israel” (Mic. 5:2). They leave behind Jerusalem with its fat and gloating Pharisees, their fingers adorned with golden rings. They leave behind the Holy Temple degraded to a business center. They leave behind its crowded, dirty and noisy streets. They leave behind the throngs of pilgrims who come there to worship at the Temple. As we travel with them, we leave behind the din and commotion of the city. We settle with them into the silent and vigilant anticipation of their pilgrimage.

Where does our road lead? It leads to Bethlehem – a bucolic but ignored town on the outskirts of Jerusalem. It is a home to shepherds. The shepherds of that time would have been wild-eyed stargazers with rotten teeth and knotted hair. Their roughly hewn bodies would have been dirty with mud, and the smell of their sheep would have still been hot upon them. Let’s just say they are not the type of characters that Roman patricians or Jewish nobility would have associated with! Don’t forget, however, that King David was a shepherd.

The road leads not to a palace or a villa or even an inn. Rather, it leads to a manger – a trough out of which cattle eat. When we arrive there with the Holy Family we will be hungry. Yes, after a 90-mile long trip we will want something to eat and drink. Yet, we will also bring with us a deeper hunger. As we walk life’s road, what are we hungry for? We hunger for an end to war, violence and oppression. We hunger for an end to the unequal distribution of resources. We hunger for an end to the depredations against creation. Also, amidst the heartaches of our monotonous lives, we ask ourselves: who am I? Why am I even here? Does my life matter?

Then, we look into the manger. We see a newborn babe wrapped in swaddling cloths. Those cloths help keep the baby’s soft bones aligned. We see God Who chose to be wrapped in humanity as a passive and totally dependent baby. We see God who said, to quote the Wisdom of Solomon, “I was nursed with care in swaddling cloths. For no king has had a different beginning of existence; there is for all one way into life and one way out” (Wis. 7:4-6). As we look tenderly at that baby’s puffed-up face and its matted strands of thin hair, as we look into his wild, wondering, shepherd’s eyes we see our own reflection. For the first time, we see the fresh rawness of our humanity. We see that we are just as frail and dependent and wild-eyed as that gentle babe. We see that “God became human not to show us how to be God, but rather to show us how to be human.” Suddenly all our hungers are satisfied.

Our journey with the Holy Family spans heaven and earth. God is incarnated as a human being. It goes from the wealth and splendor of the Roman Empire to a manger. It goes from the divinized Emperor Augustus to a totally dependent savior-baby. It goes from the noise and confused commotion of Jerusalem to an old and, till then, forgotten Bethlehem. It goes from our physical and spiritual hungers to the newborn, soft-boned God, who yawns and dozes in the robes of humanity. O Come, O Come Emmanuel! Amen.