My wife and I recently moved from the United States to a city on the Arabian peninsula. Islam predominates here, as it does in the entire region. We hear the call to prayer emanating five times daily from the mosques which populate almost every city block. We arrived two months ago during the Ramadan holiday and endured stores and restaurants being closed during the daytime hours so as not to impede with Muslim fasting requirements. It is not exclusively Islamic, however. A sizable population of expatriates brings considerable religious diversity, and we are able to worship with other Christians from dozens of nations in the international church. Still, between the pervasiveness of Islam, the hot and sunny days, and sand dunes and camels, we feel far removed from the traditional holiday harbingers in the United States: Christmas music, advent calendars, nativity displays, Christmas trees, Santa Claus, office parties, and the like.
But in a more historical, biblical, even literal sense, I am realizing that we are in many ways quite near the first nativity. Just today, we visited a local souk (market), and I held the raw samples of frankincense, myrrh, and gold that are readily sold in this part of the world, used for aromatics, decorations, and yes, still given as gifts. The climate we experience is much like the climate of Judea at the dawn of the first century. The sky we see every night is the same sky that was illumined with a bright star, and filled with a chorus of angels, 2,000 years ago. Though the Christ-child came for the entire world, His coming to earth is made more profound and more real to us by realizing that it was to this particular corner of the world that He first came.
St. Andrew
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