Michael Lindvall, a Presbyterian minister...
Illustration
Michael Lindvall, a Presbyterian minister, has written a story called "The Christmas Pageant." Set in the mythical town of North Haven, Minnesota, it tells of the year the young mothers of Second Presbyterian Church organized a rebellion. (Good News From North Haven [Doubleday, 1991])
Alvina Johnson has directed the Christmas pageant at Second Presbyterian for 47 years. In nearly half a century, there has not been a single change in the script, which was lifted straight out of the King James Bible. Youthful faces came and went, but the Christmas pageant remained the same, unshakable as Gibraltar.
That is, until the year of the young mothers' rebellion. They demanded a new pageant, one that would have parts for all the children. Alvina resigned in a huff, and it fell to the young mothers to plan the program.
One of the changes the young mothers made was to dump the King James Version and use a more modern translation. As a result, Mary was no longer "great with child." She was, in more prosaic modern terms, "pregnant."
The problem was, this change in the script was instituted at the last minute, and the poor little boy playing Joseph heard it from the narrator for the first time on Christmas Eve. The kid froze in his tracks, gave Mary an incredulous look, peered out at the congregation and exclaimed, "Pregnant? What do you mean, pregnant?"
"This, of course," as Lindvall tells the story, "brought down the house. My wife, wiping tears from her eyes, leaned over to me and said, 'You know, that may well be what Joseph actually said.' "
Alvina Johnson has directed the Christmas pageant at Second Presbyterian for 47 years. In nearly half a century, there has not been a single change in the script, which was lifted straight out of the King James Bible. Youthful faces came and went, but the Christmas pageant remained the same, unshakable as Gibraltar.
That is, until the year of the young mothers' rebellion. They demanded a new pageant, one that would have parts for all the children. Alvina resigned in a huff, and it fell to the young mothers to plan the program.
One of the changes the young mothers made was to dump the King James Version and use a more modern translation. As a result, Mary was no longer "great with child." She was, in more prosaic modern terms, "pregnant."
The problem was, this change in the script was instituted at the last minute, and the poor little boy playing Joseph heard it from the narrator for the first time on Christmas Eve. The kid froze in his tracks, gave Mary an incredulous look, peered out at the congregation and exclaimed, "Pregnant? What do you mean, pregnant?"
"This, of course," as Lindvall tells the story, "brought down the house. My wife, wiping tears from her eyes, leaned over to me and said, 'You know, that may well be what Joseph actually said.' "
