Living Nativity

I wish the children’s small, humble, live nativity could have been put on camera last Saturday. I enjoyed the production the Oakfield Community Bible Church put on for the neighborhood, while I sat on a bale of straw in a “barn” the size of a two-bay garage.

The “stage” was a quarter of that space, with live animals: two wooly lamas, chewing their cuds and shift their back ends; a soft cinnamon-colored calf, and a sheep, rounded out with a coat of fleece.  In cages above their heads hens clucked.  Joseph, about the size of a seven-year-old, stood proudly by the smaller and younger Mary.  The Virgin, seated on a straw bale, had a missing tooth. Her head covering kept slipping over her brow. She took her job of playing Jesus’s mother seriously.  The chocolate brown lama that had a white face took a particular interest in Joseph. The animal eyed the actor for a few minutes as the pastor read the Christmas story and the audience sang a carol.  The beast chewed her cud and shuffled back and forth, knocking Joseph’s shoulder with her flank. Finally, as lamas tend to do,  she flung a wad of spit at the boy.  This caught Joseph unaware. He lost his composure, but only for a few seconds. To get out of range he sat down quickly on the bale next to Mary.Angels, robed in white sheets with fabricated wings, entered stage right, and stood smiling over the holy couple.  The schoolgirls, serious about their role as angels, raised and lowered their wings, while the Pastor read and we sang.  The Jersey calf noticed the white moving wing of the nearest angel, and accepted it as her supper.  She locked her velvety lips onto the fabric and sucked away as though it were her mother’s udder.  The angel tried to stay in role, but that calf had a mighty tug on that wing, and made it difficult for the angel to do the wing-thing.  The angel became a girl for a second, and made a sudden swat at the calf’s nose.  The calf let go, sneezed and backed up, and the four-and-a-half foot high angel fluttered her wings – again.A toddler dressed in an animal costume leaped from back stage towards the manger holding Baby Jesus.  Her furry paws, rounded ears and long brown tail made me think she was a mouse joining the other barn animals in their night-time vigil over the Savior.  But her moments of playing the mouse were short-lived.  She took the Baby Jesus from Mary to cradle him in her paws. But the Virgin Mary would not let that happen and grabbed the doll back.  The toddler almost cried but then spotted another baby doll in a mini pink stroller hiding in the stable corner.  [I guess the director needed to have a stand-by for the Baby Jesus, or why else would the second baby doll be there?] The mouse-girl went over and took up that baby to be her Jesus, and was content rocking the doll.  [How blessed we in the audience were to have two Jesuses present that night.]True to most toddlers, the mouse-girl’s attention was brief. Shortly her Jesus was on the floor amidst the straw and she was moving off in another direction.  The director signaled for the prop mother, standing in the shadows, to toss some plastic building blocks onto the stable so that the children could play.  At the same time, the three kings arrived, having followed a well-rigged balsam wood star that lit up at just the right time. [Fortunately for the audience the travelers from the East had left their camels outside.] The gifts, nicely wrapped gold, frankincense and myrrh, were laid before the manger by the wise men. This action camouflaged the red, blue and yellow plastic toys. The scene morphed into a birthday party for the newborn. The nativity ended with the actors enjoying their toys and their parents’ applause.  Santa Clause entered the barn, stepped over bales of hay with his shiny black boots, and flung his sack of gifts into the middle of the joyful scene.This live nativity reminded me of the human nature of God.  That the Heavenly Creator entered humanity in such a meek setting, where the company he kept was animals (including a mouse), field-dirty shepherds, and dusty Magi, is both heart-warming and mind-boggling.  And to think that our Almighty God, with whom we can have a personal relationship, has a sense of humor and an ability to overcome the “spit-wads” of life is one of the greatest Christmas gifts there is.