What would a Christmas pageant...
Illustration
Object:
What would a Christmas pageant based on the gospel of John look like? It could be a real boon to budget-conscious churches. You wouldn't need bathrobes or cardboard crowns; no manger of old two-by-fours, stuffed with straw; no foil-covered shoeboxes, either, representing gold, frankincense, and myrrh. You wouldn't even need actors.
All you would need is a single candle.
The church would be bare and dark; the chancel stripped of pulpit, chairs, flowers, communion table: everything that's usually up there. All you'd need is a small, insignificant table, on which would sit a single, unlit candle.
The worshipers would file in and sit for a very long time, silent as a Quaker meeting. They would sit long enough to begin to feel uneasy at the silence and maybe even a little scared of the dark (childhood fears returning). At long last, a person would march solemnly in, and without a word, light that single candle.
No one, of course, would seriously try to put on a Christmas pageant like that, based on John's gospel. But, having imagined it, we can see how different John's Christmas story is. No color, music, or pageantry -- just one blazing, incontrovertible truth, a single statement so profound that maybe the only way to appreciate it is to sit in utter darkness and watch the candle-lit shadows play across the ceiling: "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it."
All you would need is a single candle.
The church would be bare and dark; the chancel stripped of pulpit, chairs, flowers, communion table: everything that's usually up there. All you'd need is a small, insignificant table, on which would sit a single, unlit candle.
The worshipers would file in and sit for a very long time, silent as a Quaker meeting. They would sit long enough to begin to feel uneasy at the silence and maybe even a little scared of the dark (childhood fears returning). At long last, a person would march solemnly in, and without a word, light that single candle.
No one, of course, would seriously try to put on a Christmas pageant like that, based on John's gospel. But, having imagined it, we can see how different John's Christmas story is. No color, music, or pageantry -- just one blazing, incontrovertible truth, a single statement so profound that maybe the only way to appreciate it is to sit in utter darkness and watch the candle-lit shadows play across the ceiling: "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it."
