Twelve Days of Christmas

Last night the elementary age children of the church performed the Christmas pageant. It is a simple telling of the Christmas story without many frills. There are costumes and a few simple props. There are preschool sheep and first and second grade shepherds. This year all of the girls wanted to be angels and so they were, resulting in a true multitude of heavenly hosts. We had three prophets, three innkeepers, and three wise men who arrived perfectly on cue. Mary had a real baby to hold and Joseph was at her side just observing all the fuss.

Like many things about Christmas, a simple pageant is never simple. There were parents and teenagers crouching behind the organ, in the choir loft, behind the entrances and just beyond the piano to help with wings and calm nervous performers, to help with lines and to gently encourage little ones to go out front and smile. This years' influx of angels required the last minute sewing of ten angel costumes. The halos from years past kept breaking so an alternative had to be found. An innkeeper insisted at rehearsal that he would need to hold the mic like Elvis. Ceasar August wouldn't wear his crown because it looked like a girl crown to him. Mary's sudden onset of a cold required a heavy dose of over the counter medication. One wiseman had the flu so a townsperson, after delivering his line, slipped out the back and around the side, changed into a fancy cape and hat and was transformed into the third wiseman, without ever rehearsing it. A simple telling of the Christmas story, but not a simple few day, few hours in the approach to it.

In this general state of loosely controlled chaos, it is easy to forget the point. The point is not to have the best show ever. I'll leave that to Broadway and Hollywood. The point is to teach the children, through active participation, the story of Christ's birth. Each year one shepherd responds to the line,"What can we bring him?" with the line ,"Brothers we can give him our faith." Each year as I hear a little child's voice say that line, I am reminded that faith in Christ is the point. Despite all of the distractions and chores that lead up to Christmas, the point is not the accomplishment of that work, but faith in Christ.

As the evening of the 25th is now coming to a close and the pageant has been performed, the gifts unwrapped, the beef roasted, carved and eaten with family and friends and it seems as if Christmas is coming to an end, the Christmas season has just begun. Luckily for us Christmas is not over on the 25th of December, but it begins that day. When the maelstrom of shopping and cooking and gatherings subsides the church season is beginning. While the rest of the world is moving on we still have eleven more days to remember and reflect on Christmas. We can take this time to remember that faith in Christ is the point and rest in the peace we find in Christ's love for us.


Merry Christmas,
Michelle