Your Place In The Nativity

Thanks to a picture of a Nativity scene where one of the three wise men is holding baby Jesus, I’ve found myself particularly interested in Nativities this year. Truth be told, the interest has been growing over the past few years as 1) I’ve noticed how helpful it is to have a visual image when telling the Christmas story to children, and 2) We went through my Grandmother’s house and I found a handful of Nativities that spoke to me.

After seeing the picture of a wise man holding Jesus, I made it a quiet personal quest to find non-traditional Nativities where persons other than Mary are holding baby Jesus. So far, I’ve seen a picture of a scene where Joseph is holding baby Jesus, but that’s as far as my quest has taken me…sort of…

As I was practicing for a cantata on Saturday morning, I found myself singing, “Come to the manger and kneel as his side, adore Him. Come see him sleeping, this heavenly child, adore Him. This unlikely Savior who sleeps in the cold, this tiny Messiah the prophets foretold. Come see the wonders your eyes will behold, adore Him…” and I suddenly realized what the lyrics were saying:

They were beckoning me, Deanna, to join the Nativity. They were asking me, Deanna, to enter that stable and visit baby Jesus like the shepherds did so many years ago!

And the invitation made me wonder: Where WOULD I have been in the picture had I been there? Would I have been standing at a distance, awestruck by the wonder of it all (or maybe even afraid)? Would I have been talking to Joseph and Mary, inquiring about their well-being? Would I have been trying to make the shepherds feel welcome? Would I have been holding baby Jesus?...

I know that Nativity scenes aren’t accurate. I know that the wisemen didn’t really visit baby Jesus in the stable. I know that there wasn’t snow on the ground on the night that Jesus was born. I know that that night wasn’t silent and still and that the animals weren’t perfectly poised and well-behaved.

Yet, somehow, accuracy doesn’t matter to me this Christmas. Instead, the invitation to join the Nativity is what beckons me to come…and to invite you, too…poorest of the poor…richest of the rich…timid and bold…weak and strong…to imagine yourself in that familiar Nativity…to adore Him…and to see it all anew…again…and again. Amen.