Monthly Archives: December 2016

Our Living Crèche Christmas Pageant cradled our parish this morning in God’s grace.

Grace was everywhere – outside in the brilliant sunshine lighting up the icy world, inside in the laughter that sang and wove among us as we donned our costumes. Phones snapped photos of angels in white cottas wrapped in golden garlands, of shepherds in subdued earth tones, of Mary in her blue gown.

Once costumed, we assembled in the narthex of the church and waited for our cue to step up the aisle, seven pews apart, genuflect before the chancel steps, and take our places in the scene. We were adults, young and old, and children, two to fourteen. We were of many races and backgrounds. But the love of Christ wove through us on this cold and bright wintry morning.

This tableau is not a silent one, for we spoke our lines from Luke 2 about the greatest drama on earth, the birth of our Lord Jesus. We sang carols full of hope and faith, sending our song over the rapt congregation. It was as though we included them in the Living Crèche with our soaring song. The notes danced in the air, sweet tunes, simple tunes that lingered. We invited those in the pews to watch and pray, to worship with us within the tableau. We invited them into our story.

For it is a story for all of us, about all of us, with no one left out, no one separated from the love of God. In our divisive world, in this world that fractures faith and bullies belief, in this world that isolates and pushes the pulse of church life to the edges of society, we will not be silent. We will sing our songs and proclaim our good news, our message of salvation. As we stood in the chancel, our songbooks in our palms, we sent our music winging, not only to the people in the pews, but out the front doors and into the streets of our communities.

It has been said that man is incurably religious because of his mortality. At some point we all must face our death, our dying flesh, our limited time on earth. What comes next? Is this all there is? Our culture wishes to silence our reply. Heaven comes next, we answer. Let’s get ready. Let’s prepare here on earth for the great banquet in Heaven. Let’s set out on the right road on our pilgrimage to God with God. For only by journeying with him will we arrive at our true destination, find our true destiny, God himself.

I have taken part in Christmas Crèches and Pageants for over forty years and I am always stunned by the miracles birthed as we tell the story. We are so small and weak and human, so full of self. And yet as we tell this story of the child born to Mary in Bethlehem, of the shepherds and the angels and the heavenly host on a cold clear starry night over two thousand years ago, we are fed by love, made one body in the love of God. We soon see that the glories of the Incarnation are here, present among us, present on the altar, present in our hearts. The holy child of Bethlehem lives today.

It happened this morning once again. It was clear and cold, a midday clear if not a midnight clear, and grace wove among us, lacing us together with God’s love. Such a Christmas present is nearly too joyous to bear. And so we share it with you, let it overflow into the communities in which we live. For grace grows in love, weaving us together into a beautiful tapestry, a solemn sonnet, so that many races, many ages, many walks of life are woven together. No one is left out in this creche.

For all is grace.

We assembled in the first pews after Mass, the cast reflecting our parish in the vast span of ages, 2 to 81. We gathered on this Rose Sunday in Advent to rehearse our Living Crèche Christmas Pageant, to be performed next Sunday, December 18.

As we sang the carols and read the verses from Luke 2, we became part of the story, telling it again, bringing it to life with our words and song. Dramas like this were done since the earliest days in the Church to teach the glorious events of that first Christmas. And so we continue to tell and to teach, to act out, to paint a canvas of love on the chancel steps.

The organ, high above in the loft at the other end of the sea of pews and walls of stained glass, sent its rich tones soaring toward us, and we caught them and sent them back. It was as though we were wrapped in music and words, in this tableau called a Living Crèche. We were a wrapped gift decorated with the ribbon of music, ribbons curling with joy, ribbons tying us close to one another, closer to love.

Advent is a time of preparation for the Feast of the Incarnation, the eternal entering time, the Word becoming flesh, the light entering the darkness. Christmas expands our universe and pulls us into Heaven. The reality of God’s love is too large for us to grasp, and so we shrink it into pieces of art, pieces of truth shared in a way that we can fathom, that we can touch. We domesticate this awesome God, this magnificent transcendent God who searches for us and within us, who desires us with him forever, who loves us so.

And so the Church, from the earliest days, has used art to touch us with the love of God. With image, drama, poetry, music, dance, God reaches out to us. For God is the burning bush and we cannot bear his brilliance. Moses approaches with care. So do we. We are frail human beings, made of dust who will return to dust. So, in our tentative frailty, we listen to stories. We look at paintings and icons. We sing hymns and carols. We allow a booming organ to enter our hearts on the chancel steps. We domesticate the brilliance, the magnificence, with art, glorious art.

T.S. Eliot said that mankind cannot bear very much reality. Truth and beauty find their way to us even so, if we watch and listen, if we are awake. The love of God shatters the universe into billions of stars, and becomes a tiny baby born in a stable. For, as St. John says, God is love, and it is this reality that is the good news of Christmas. It is this truth that mankind yearns for, hopes that it really is true. It is this love, the source of all creation, that we fear is simply too good to be true. And yet it is.

Love shatters us for it sees us as we are, broken and selfish, but remakes us into who we should be. Love takes our shattered fragments and puts them back together, healing us, making us whole.

The Living Crèche tells the story of God’s love for us. One by one, each character steps up the aisle. One by one, they are added to the picture painted, each adding to the whole. We begin with Adam and Eve, then enters Isaiah, Mary, Gabriel, Joseph, shepherds, and the heavenly host of angels. With each one, the song grows, the story is born in a stable in Bethlehem. Each one journeys up the long aisle from the narthex to the chancel, a pilgrimage to God with God, just like our lives in time, from birth to death to Heaven.

We take our places in the chancel, and behind us the tabernacle holds the Real Presence of Christ. Tall tapers flame on the altar, framing God among us, Emmanuel, God with us. The flaming candles remind us of light in the darkness. They remind us of the warmth of God’s love. They remind us of life itself.

The story of Christmas is so fantastic it could never have been invented. It is a story that has a reliable historical pedigree, told and retold through the ages, by reliable witnesses. The Gospels, as Classics scholar C.S. Lewis points out, read as history, not fable or myth. They read as an account of events, marvelous, incredible events, good news for mankind:

“He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: which were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father), full of grace and truth.” (KJV John 10-14)

In Advent we tell the glorious story as we wait for Christmas, the Word made flesh, the Incarnation.