Here’s my Christmas column for the Greenville News.  Merry Christmas to all!

When I was a child, one of my favorite things about Christmas was the nativity set. We had a toy shed, made of wood and moss. And we had the characters of the nativity, all porcelain and paint. It was pretty complete, actually. There were angels, three wise men (each of different races), various young and old shepherds, sheep, toy animals I added as the years went by, and of course, Mary, Joseph and the Holy Child in the manger.

I would kneel by the creche and rearrange the characters. In my child’s imagination, putting my face close to the tableau was a way of entering into the story. As if, by participating in the thing, I would be transported back 2000 years to Bethlehem of Judea; or could at least see it first hand through some special lens.

So I changed it from time to time, to be a part. I had Wise Men coming from the East and West, shepherds in front and back. I herded sheep, cattle and camels in among the scenes, and repositioned the blessed family in a variety of ways in the little stable. I seem to remember that I always wanted an angel on top, watching over everything.

Thinking back on this, it occurred to me how formative that was. I learned, from the Gospels, and therefore from my play, that the event was wide-open to mankind. It’s a remarkable story, you see. At the birth of Jesus we have a nexus, where the powerful, like Herod, are frustrated by the powerless, like Jesus’ family (and for the time, Jesus himself). We have a meeting place where poor, uneducated rural shepherds are not only welcomed, but personally invited by the shining angelic emissaries of the King. And we have a prophecy fulfilled, which drew the metropolitan, rich, educated elite we know as Magi, who learned from their ancient texts the magnificent thing that was unfolding. God the father apparently sent unique, specially prepared birth announcements to both groups; both the gilded and the simple.

Near the shed and manger, the chaos of mankind, its commerce, its laws and government, lies upon crowded hotels and packed roads, but nearby is also the emptiness of the desert, lit by the bright stars of the night instead of lamps.

In and about the blessed shed are cattle and sheep, goats and rats, and probably cats. Horses and donkeys are feeding. And yet above it, also part of the created order, are ‘a multitude of the heavenly hosts.’ Below, the dirt from which mankind was made; above, the heavens he longs for. All in perfect balance.

And there, in swaddling clothes, the child and his awestruck, dumbfounded, gloriously happy and moderately confused human parents; all safely ensconced in the will of the God who ordained it all, and in profound mystery also lies stretching and crying before them.

The perfect balance remains today. Buy your own nativity, or simply imagine it in a ‘thought experiment.’ Insert who you will into the scene. A business man and a peasant, a soldier and a peace activist. Insert a criminal and a victim, a politician and a struggling mother. Imagine yourself as a Magi, or as an angel! Pretend you are the parents of the child. See, kneeling, your bitterest ideological enemy; and see yourself, also someone’s foe. Come to the manger as a homeless man or a grieving widower. Place your dog there, if you will, or your horse. Pretend, if you find it all ridiculous, that you are Herod, searching in anger. At least you are searching.

Locate the scene in your old storage shed, your grandparents’ barn, in a homeless tent city or outside a warm hotel. Place it in Greenville, or in New York, in Pakistan or Syria, in the past or the future. Imagine it welcoming, a light in the darkness. But do not make it shiny or comfortable, rich or exclusive.

In time, you will see that the creche is the cross. The meeting place of horizontal earth and vertical heaven, of time and eternity, poverty and riches, loss and hope, fear and joy, cruelty and justice, lies and truth. All of it, right there, in the Nativity Set of my childhood. All of it, right there, at the birth of Jesus.

Where we all have a place in the story, if we only desire it.


0 0 votes
Article Rating