December 1998 Issue

Luke 2:1-14

The name of this sermon might be . . . "Manger Scenes I Have Known." Because you know there are manger scenes, and there are manger scenes.

I remember one as a teenager in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, where the Virgin Mary was costumed in blue satin from her foot to the top of her head which was adorned with a rhinestone tiara. On her ears were matching, dangling rhinestone earrings and she held the doll baby Jesus with long, white kid gloves. We called that manger scene the glitzy Madonna.

Later on I remember going to the Radio City Music Hall in New York City and seeing the Christmas show which probably had more participants in the cast than the entire city of Bethlehem did when Jesus was born. And the Rockettes danced their praise to the immaculately clothed and perfectly choreographed Holy Family.

And then there are all those live manger scenes that became so popular in the Sixties and still survive today. They were usually located in the yards of churches where shifts of volunteers braved the cold air every night to take their place with other lively participants in a tableau right off a traditional Hallmark Christmas card. Many years ago I remember the hassle of getting all our Children into their warm clothing one cold night for us to have a wonderful family outing (always more compelling in our imagination than in reality). We headed with excitement to a live manger scene at a local church in Birmingham. About the time we got everybody out of the car and into place in order to observe all the live people and the live animals, a big brown cow mozied slowly toward the stable, paused and batting her sleepy big dark eyes, bent her head toward the manger straw, encountering there the one un-live character of the otherwise live performers. It was the doll baby Jesus. The cow grabbed the doll in her teeth and slung it over her head, out in the crowd of onlookers who cheered as we shivered. We all laughed out loud and broke some of our piousness about the family gathering. I thought to myself, how typical of our human narrowness to cast the main character of the show - the baby Jesus - as a wooden, manufactured and very unreal doll. And how appropriate of the baby Jesus to bolt out of that manger into the people, slightly mocking the other pretentious stable dwellers.

Yes, there are manger scenes, and there are manger scenes.

However the worst nativity pageant I ever remember was at the church where I grew up. The youth group was staging this manger scene. I was chosen to play Joseph and believe it or not, my future wife, Allison, was chosen to play Mary. We did our parts with seriousness and commitment, looking as pious as possible. And then it came time for the shepherds to enter. The choir was singing "While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks by Night" and some of our fellow young people dressed in flannel bathrobes and towelled head gear proceeded to the altar steps where Allison and I looked lugubriously at the straw which contained a naked light bulb. With his back to the congregation, one of our peer shepherds said in a very loud whisper for all the cast to hear, "Well, Joe, when you gonna pass out cigars?" The spell of that occasion was not simply broken by his remark, it was exploded. Our Mary and Joseph cover was completely destroyed as it became impossible to hold back the bursts of laughter. The chief angel, standing on a chair behind us was the worst. She shook so hard that she fell off her chair and simply rolled over on the floor, holding her stomach. The strains of "Silent Night" or "0 Little Town of Bethlehem" were sufficient to cover the uncontrolled snorts of the main characters. Our much upset but good-sported youth advisor said, "The only thing that didn't go to pieces was the light bulb in the manger, it never went out." I thought to myself later, that's a nice image - the light in the manger never goes out.

Yes there are manger scenes, and there are manger scenes.

And isn't it very strange how we all seem to want to get there to get to the manger. Why do we keep coming back year after year to Christmas pageants or nativity stagings or dramatic extravaganzas of the birth narratives? Can you imagine what a visitor from Mars would think? He would be totally confused at our insistence on restaging a tiny little bit of an ancient story told only once in one small book in the midst of a whole library of books called the Bible. Why do we do it - what draws us to the manger?

Certainly it is not a rational thing. Certainly it does not fit into our scientific and technological world of chips and software and information highways. The desire of believers to return to the manger and simply to be there is very strange, but very strong.

Perhaps ... amidst the glitz and the glitter and the sheer avarice incarnate in shopping malls and media -- perhaps -- somewhere deep down below the empty shine of cocktail parties or the Norman Rockwell dream of family gatherings, or even buried behind the Handels and the alleluias and the glorias - perhaps underneath and behind it all is a longing - a longing for simplicity when we are drowning with clutter - a yearning for some reality when we are surrounded with pretention - a desire for truth beyond our chronic illusions - a craving for mystery when we are suffocating from secularism.

And so, we come to the manger scene - the straw, the animals, Mary and Joseph, shepherds and Wise Men and the baby.

When I was rector of St. Thomas Church in Huntsville, the women of the church used to invite for a Christmas party a special education class with cerebral palsy. They came to the Christmas party as our guests, so our healthy children put on a pageant for them. They were served cookies and refreshments made by our women. One of the men dressed up as Santa Claus and came to give these unfortunate children their Christmas presents.

After two years into that project, one of the teachers in the cerebral palsy class suggested that perhaps her students could return some of our generosity and hence participate in a shared Christmas festivity. Even though tentative at first about this approach (after all, we are supposed to be helping and giving at Christmas) the brave women of St. Thomas agreed to experiment. It was a cold, bitter rainy day that first Tuesday when the cerebral palsy class performed the Christmas pageant at St. Thomas. There was Mary and Joseph, one little black boy and one little white girl, in wheel chairs. The angel could not keep her arms from flying in the air. The shepherds came on crutches. The Wise Men took a very long time to get from the back of the parish hall to the manger with their arms waving so, pulling their own wheelchairs. It was almost impossible to understand the narrator because of her speech impediment, but we all knew the story any way. No one tried to help anyone else, and no one felt embarrassed. It was quiet at first and then there was laughter and sometimes there were tears. The simple truth from the manger was not denied - some of us have cerebral palsy and some of us do not. Some of us are children and some of us are adults. Some of us are black and some of us are white. Some of us are poor and some of us are rich. But we are all human beings and we are peculiarly separate while being peculiarly united. One thing is for sure, we are all vulnerable, we are all fragile much like a baby and in that manger kind of insight, tears may be a sacrament - tears with smiles become the outward and visible sign of some inward and spiritual grace at the manger scene.

Yes, there are manger scenes, and there are manger scenes.

It is very mysterious how we all yearn to go to the manger year after year -- for simplicity? ... maybe. For reality? ... maybe. For truth? ... maybe. For love? Of course.

So ... come away ...it is all right to come away ... this Christmas eve do not be afraid to come away ... "Away in a manger, no crib for a bed, the little Lord Jesus lay down his sweet head ... I love thee, Lord Jesus. Look down from the sky. And stay by my cradle till morning is nigh."

Rev. Harry H. Pritchett, Jr.
THE PROTESTANT HOUR