KEY POINTS:
"O little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie" are the opening words of the well known carol. The reality is far different.
A huge wall has reduced Bethlehem to an urban core, cut off from the other 70 per cent of its land which comprises agricultural areas and water resources.
A system of cement walls, electric fences and checkpoints creates a prison-like environment.
A huge drop in tourism has left hotels with a 2.5 per cent occupancy rate and unemployment in excess of 60 per cent.
Difficulties in accessing Bethlehem are not new. Mary arrived there 2000 years ago, pregnant and riding on a donkey, husband Joseph walking by her side.
The town was packed with citizens summoned for a Roman census and the only place available for Mary to give birth to her baby was a barn behind an inn.
This week four British church leaders are making a pilgrimage to Bethlehem, access difficulties notwithstanding.
From today, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Westminster Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, Moderator of the Free Churches David Coffey and Primate of the Armenian Church Nathan Hovhannisian will visit the Holy Land as modern-day pilgrims.
The focal point will be prayer together at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. The ancient spot recorded as the place of Jesus' birth lies beneath this large church, down a steep flight of stairs.
Pilgrimages to Bethlehem, both ancient and modern, as well as to other holy places, reflect a timeless desire to find God in our midst. But what are the signs of God we might look for?
Oxford biology professor Richard Dawkins has just released a book The God Delusion. Its 400 pages are devoted to debunking the image of God as supernatural creator. In 1961 the Russian cosmonaut, Yuri Gagarin, reported no sign of God in his space odyssey.
Both professor and cosmonaut might be looking in the wrong place, for there are many other more contemporary images of God. The Bible talks of God in categories of spirit, light, life and love. Such images resonate with ancient Celtic understandings of God as life-giving spirit flowing through all creation.
The birth at Bethlehem focuses the divine love in the child Jesus, and in a life that was lived sacrificially in the service of others.
Such love has remained through the ages as the heartbeat of human community. Often overlaid with the evils of war, poverty and environmental abuse, it nonetheless seems to kick in again like a computer's default position when all else fails.
A Berlin wall is torn down; apartheid overthrown; people respond with compassion to a tsunami and a new awareness of climate change emerges.
Young people put their lives on the line travelling into dangerous situations abroad as medical workers, teachers, engineers, builders or agricultural workers focusing on crop-farming and clean water supplies.
Closer to home the same spirit of care is found in firefighters, ambulance workers, police, armed service personnel and nurses and doctors who work long hours on crisis wards.
In Auckland, in the run-up to Christmas, schools, churches and community groups have once again been collecting presents for homes in parts of the city where Christmas is a reminder of how much many people don't have, and how much others do.
Love in our midst is a pervasive reality. The churches lay no exclusive claim.
Rough though the journey might be, a pilgrimage to Bethlehem in this season reminds us of a universal love that finds expression in compassion for others, a thirst for justice and peace, and a generosity that costs us more than just discretionary expenditure.
* Richard Randerson is Dean of Holy Trinity Cathedral in Parnell and assistant Anglican bishop of Auckland.
