Considering the number of religious buildings that are in the Biblical nativity scene (zero) it is of more than passing interest how many appear on Christmas cards, usually in the snow. How easily the meaning of God becomes architectural, a misfortune that is almost as old as religion itself. When Peter saw Christ transfigured on the mountain his immediate reaction was a desire to build.
This card looks a little snowy but this may be a trick of desert light. It's a great card and full of buildings behind the holy family. But wait . . . what are those buildings?
Apart from the stable, Bethlehem clearly has an inn and one or two of the buildings could pass for that. Less understandably the Judean hill town might have acquired a lighthouse over to the left. Is there a mosque there? No, that would be a few hundred years early. There are certainly two churches, judging by the crosses on the towers.
No, hang on. Churches? Crosses? It's like announcing a birth with the babe's obituary!
Thus, inadvertently, this card profoundly reflects the meaning of Christmas as the angel described it - You will call his name Jesus ['God saves'] for he will save his people from their sins. The nativity has no meaning apart from the cross, and the cross no meaning apart from the body of people - the Church - that it wins for heaven from the darkness of sin.
Out of a card's chronological confusion we see light.
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