Christmas Communion
Stories
Object:
Contents
Sharing Visions: "Christmas Communion" by John E. Sumwalt
Good Stories: "This Will Be a Sign" by John E. Sumwalt
Jo's Yarn Basket: "Christmas Eve Magic"
Sharing Visions
Christmas Communion
by John E. Sumwalt
A young woman drove a rented car slowly up a snow-covered mountain road on a cold Christmas Eve. She was going to see her father, whom she had not seen in twelve years. She had been sixteen when her father and mother divorced after his affair with a woman at work. Neither she nor her mother had ever been able to forgive him. The affair had not lasted and her father had soon given up his corporate job in an eastern city and moved to Colorado -- "to rest his weary soul in the solitude of the mountains" was what he had written in the first letter he sent after he left home. He had taken a job with the national park service for the summer and hoped he might find something at a ski resort in the winter. That was all she knew about his life for all of those years. Letters had come regularly from the same address in a town called Ward, and she had carefully saved each one, unopened, in a cookie tin on the back shelf of the large walk-in closet in the bedroom of her townhouse. She had done well for herself, ironically, in the same company that had once employed her father.
The last line of that one letter she had read flashed into her mind, as it had so many times before, as she saw the road sign for Ward with an arrow pointing to the right. "I hope you will be able to forgive me some day, Gracie. I love you."
Could she forgive him? Was that why she had come? Even after the long flight and the equally long drive from the airport on unfamiliar mountain roads, she still didn't know.
Grace and her mother had always spent Christmases together, vacationing in Florida or the Caribbean. It was a way of distracting themselves from what they had lost. Now that her mother was remarried there was no place to go. They had invited her for Christmas, her mother and Ted, but she hadn't wanted to intrude on their first holiday together. So, here she was on the road to Ward.
Grace could see the lights of the little town shimmering below her, shiny and yellow against the snow, like the gold that had once been mined from the mountain. She turned off the main highway and shifted into low gear. The road down to the village was steep and narrow and snow-covered. Sand had been spread on the curves, but she still had to go slow. She wondered in which of the thirty or forty houses and old miner's shacks she would find her father. She pulled up in front of the general store. The porch light was on and the door was open. A young woman about her own age, dressed in bib overalls with braided hair hanging down to her waist, was crocheting behind the counter near a small wood-burning stove. Candy bars, cigarettes, and several brands of cough medicine lined the shelves behind her. The woman smiled at Grace and said, "Good evening. What can I do for you?"
"I'm looking for my father," Grace said. The plaintive tone of her own voice surprised her. She told the woman her father's name and immediately saw a knowing look of recognition. "Old Jim. He comes in here all the time. You must be Grace. He told me about you."
It seemed strange to hear her father called old. Grace remembered him as middle-aged. Of course he would be older now, in his late sixties. It pleased Grace to know he had spoken of her.
"Almost everybody is up at the church," the woman said. "I saw your dad go up about a half-hour ago. A retired preacher comes up from Nederbet every Christmas Eve. It's about the only time they have services here. You can leave your car out in front. It's easier to walk from here."
Grace slowly made her way over the footbridge spanning the ice-covered stream that wound through the center of the town. She could see the small clapboard church about 200 yards up the mountain. On top of the steeple there were green, blue, and red Christmas lights flashing in the form of a star. They appeared to be attached to the cross. Her hands trembled as she opened the door of the church. Would her father be glad to see her after all these years? Would he recognize her?
She spotted him, sitting by himself in one of the back pews. "Old Jim." The woman at the store was right. His hair was thin and completely gray. He was much heavier now. He looked tired, and, the thought pained her, very much alone.
The congregation stood up to sing "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing." The words of the familiar carol rang in her ears as she slipped into the pew beside her father. "Glory to the newborn King, Peace on earth and mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled."
She squeezed her father's hand and a smile came over his face in the same instant he turned to see her. "Grace," he said, "I'm so glad to see you."
"Daddy," was all she was able to say.
When the preacher gave the invitation to come forward for Christmas communion, Grace and her father walked up the aisle hand in hand.
Note: This previously unpublished story came as a gift of the Spirit to John in 1996 as he passed through Ward following a camping expedition in Rocky Mountain National Park with his two brothers, his son, and four nephews.
Good Stories
This Will Be a Sign
by John E. Sumwalt
This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.
Luke 2:12
Christ Church put on a live nativity every year about two weeks before Christmas. They had the perfect location downtown on the square across from the clock tower. Everyone who drove into the business district went right by the front lawn of the church. There were slums, and street people who slept in the park a few blocks away, but you couldn't see them from the church. They set the nativity up on the lawn on the designated evening after dark and flooded it with carefully placed spotlights. For anyone driving around the square it was a dazzling sight, a Christmas card come to life. When word got out people came from miles around, from all over the city and the suburbs.
At first it was just a few bales of hay stacked up to give some semblance of a stable, a couple of sheep and two sets of parents with small babies who took turns portraying the holy family. But as the crowds grew each year the nativity became a bigger and bigger production with shepherds, wise men, an innkeeper, King Herod, a small flock of sheep with lambs for the children to pet, a donkey for Mary to ride, cows with calves, chickens, ducks, geese, and, thanks to special arrangements made through the local Shriners, three genuine two-hump camels to carry the wise men as they followed the star. The star rolled along on a track which had been laid out across the roof line of the church. They rented doves one year to perch on top of the stable and coo, but they couldn't get them to coo on cue and they discovered that the pigeons that flew down from the clock tower could play the part just as well, and they were free, so that was the end of rented doves.
The latest addition had been a 40-voice angel choir, with the choir director Tom Grover playing the part of the archangel Gabriel. Tom loved to dress up in his flowing white robes with magnificent wings with gold glitter on the tips. He suggested that he carry a flaming sword when he made the announcement to the shepherds, but the director thought that would be too much. They did give him a special halo with soft blue light which made him stand out from the others whose halos were a much dimmer white. One of the guys in the tenor section said he looked like he was announcing a K-Mart special.
The angel choir sang from an elevated stage erected on the far edge of the lawn in front of the church's three large air conditioning units. Surrounded by clouds painted on cardboard, and raised and lowered hydraulically, it made for a wonderful dramatic moment when their lights came on and they appeared out of the darkness singing "It Came Upon the Midnight Clear." For the grand finale at the end of each half-hour performance, they formed themselves into a giant living Christmas tree and sang "Joy to the World."
One year, at their late summer planning meeting, the director announced that they needed a sign, a big billboard somewhere downtown, perhaps visible from the freeway, with a picture of the nativity and an invitation for everyone to come and see it at Christ Church. He said it would be a good way of expanding their ministry and it would be great publicity for the church. The senior pastor said that she knew a retired sign painter in the congregation and offered to ask him to paint the sign. Someone else offered to make arrangements to rent the billboard and to talk to some of the wealthy members about paying for it. Everyone thought it was a wonderful idea.
At their next meeting in mid-October it was reported that plans were well under way and the sign would be ready just after Thanksgiving. The retired sign painter had responded with great enthusiasm to the idea of painting the nativity on a billboard for all of the city to see. He said it had been a lifelong dream to paint a sign that would be a witness to his faith. He had asked for only one consideration -- "a free hand in painting the nativity as the Holy Spirit led" was the way he put it. And they were glad to agree. They had seen his work and they knew there was no one better in the sign painting business. No one was to see the sign until the unveiling on the first Sunday of Advent.
There were several more meetings after that. As Advent approached there was an air of excitement in the church like they had never experienced before. When word got around about the billboard everyone wanted to be in the nativity. They had to create several more roles: shepherd boys and shepherd girls, the innkeeper was to have children hanging on his arm this year with a wife doing chores in the background, there would be a dozen more angels, and the wise men would have servants following along behind the camels. They rented several more animals, including a goat and a flock of peacocks. It would add more atmosphere, they said.
The unveiling was scheduled for noon, after the last worship service on the first Sunday of Advent. The church was packed, and after the benediction the choir, dressed in their nativity costumes, led the whole congregation out the door, around the square, and down a couple of blocks to where the billboard was located near the downtown off-ramp next to the freeway. It was one of the best advertising locations in the city. Two hundred thousand people would see the sign every week.
The mayor of the city was to assist the pastor and the nativity director in the unveiling. The retired sign painter was standing by. It would be his moment of triumph. A newspaper photographer was to take his picture standing in front of the sign after it was unveiled. One of the television stations had sent a reporter and a camera crew, and of course, several people in the congregation had brought video cameras. Everyone had a sense that this was to be a historic moment.
The ceremonies started with a brief speech by the nativity director, followed by a few words of greeting from the mayor and a prayer of consecration led by the pastor. Then came the moment they had all been waiting for. The choir began to sing "Away in a Manger" softly in the background. The director signaled for the cloth that was covering the sign to be raised. They all craned their necks upwards and waited. And then they saw it. At first there was a kind of quiet murmur that rippled through the crowd, then gasps, followed by a din of wonderment which grew into what sounded like a roar of disapproval. They couldn't believe what they were seeing! It looked nothing at all like their beautiful nativity. The sign painter had painted a simple cardboard shack with a contemporary Joseph and Mary who looked very much like the street people who lived in the park a few blocks from the church. Baby Jesus was wrapped in rags and lying in a tattered disposable diaper box. There were no shepherds or wise men, no angels with gold-tipped wings. There was only a bag lady and a cop who had come by on his horse. They were both kneeling in front of the diaper box, and the babe appeared to be smiling at them. Underneath the picture were painted the words:
This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.
They put the best face on things that they could. The director said something about the church's ministry to the poor. What else were they going to say? They couldn't say that it was a mistake on live television, in front of the mayor and the whole city. But it was difficult to hide their disappointment. Everyone was gone within five minutes of the unveiling. The retired sign painter was left alone with the television reporter to try to explain his modern rendering of the nativity. But even he was beginning to wonder if he had made a mistake. His wife, his children, and his grandchildren had left with everyone else. He wondered if they would ever forgive him for this embarrassment to the family. Perhaps they would never go to church with him again.
It was on Monday morning, just after the church secretary came to work, about eight o'clock, that the phone started to ring. There were not only calls from within the city, there were calls from all over the country -- newspaper reporters, disk jockeys, talk show hosts; everyone wanted to hear more about the sign. And the calls kept coming all week. Soon everyone in the nation knew about Christ Church's unusual sign. The retired sign painter became an overnight celebrity. By Thursday he had been on two national talk shows and was scheduled for Oprah the next week.
The following Sunday the church was filled to overflowing at both services. The pastor was so taken aback that by the second service she had discarded her prepared notes and was talking about the miracle that God had worked among them. She suggested that while the nativity was a wonderful ministry, perhaps God was calling them to a new ministry with the poor and homeless. Perhaps they could start a shelter in the basement of the church, and maybe they could help the Habitat folks build and renovate houses in the slums of their city. When she was finished preaching, the choir sang "Joy to the World" as they led the congregation out the door, around the square, and down the two blocks to the sign. There they stopped and looked again at the child who smiled out at them from the rags and cardboard shack.
From somewhere near the front of the congregation there came the soft sound of a single voice. It was Tom Grover, the choir director, and he was singing:
What child is this who laid to rest, on Mary's lap is sleeping?
Whom angels greet with anthems sweet, while shepherds watch are keeping?
And then the choir and the whole congregation joined with him, singing with all of their might:
This, this is Christ the King, whom shepherds guard and angels sing;
Haste, haste to bring him laud, the babe, the son of Mary.
From Lectionary Stories: Forty Tellable Tales For Cycle C by John E. Sumwalt (CSS Publishing Company, 1991), pages 18-23.
Jo's Yarn Basket
Christmas Eve Magic
There's magic in the air at the family service on Christmas Eve at Wauwatosa Avenue United Methodist Church. Children who have been gathered in the parlor for a half-hour or more file into the front pews, grouped by costume -- shepherds on the right angels on the left, wise men, Gabriel, and the star in the front row. Mary and Joseph await their cue by the back door, and their real, live baby Jesus waits with Grandma or Auntie to take his/her place in the manger.
I inherited directorship of this pageant when I took the position of Christian Education Director eight years ago. It was conceived as a "walk-in" pageant, totally unrehearsed. All children -- visitors and regulars alike -- are welcome to take part. The costumes are displayed for them in the parlor, next to the sanctuary, and given out on a first-come, first-served basis. The pageant itself hasn't changed much over the years. High school students still read the Christmas story from Matthew and Luke. Middle schoolers try to snag the roles of the wise men, the angel Gabriel, and the star. It is carried atop an 8-foot pole, round and round the sanctuary while the congregation sings ALL of the verses of "We Three Kings," and alights in a flag stand behind the Holy Family when the wise men finally get to offer their gifts. Dozens of angels join Gabriel as the Heavenly Host, praising God and singing before dozens of little shepherds bowing in awe during "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing."
The biggest difference is the children involved. Our first baby Jesus is now a 3rd grader. Our son, who was in 5th grade our first Christmas here, is a college freshman. One of the high school readers from Christmas 1994 is now on our staff as the Senior High Youth Coordinator.
What never changes is the wonder: the faces of the young couples who portray Mary and Joseph as they lay their baby son or daughter in the manger; the angels, male and female, with their tinsel halos aglow; the faces of the little shepherds when they "hurry to Bethlehem" and find the real live baby in the manger; and last year, the face of the shepherd boy who put his finger out to be grasped in the tiny fist of baby Jesus, who was his own baby brother, and gave him a kiss.
Sharing Visions: "Christmas Communion" by John E. Sumwalt
Good Stories: "This Will Be a Sign" by John E. Sumwalt
Jo's Yarn Basket: "Christmas Eve Magic"
Sharing Visions
Christmas Communion
by John E. Sumwalt
A young woman drove a rented car slowly up a snow-covered mountain road on a cold Christmas Eve. She was going to see her father, whom she had not seen in twelve years. She had been sixteen when her father and mother divorced after his affair with a woman at work. Neither she nor her mother had ever been able to forgive him. The affair had not lasted and her father had soon given up his corporate job in an eastern city and moved to Colorado -- "to rest his weary soul in the solitude of the mountains" was what he had written in the first letter he sent after he left home. He had taken a job with the national park service for the summer and hoped he might find something at a ski resort in the winter. That was all she knew about his life for all of those years. Letters had come regularly from the same address in a town called Ward, and she had carefully saved each one, unopened, in a cookie tin on the back shelf of the large walk-in closet in the bedroom of her townhouse. She had done well for herself, ironically, in the same company that had once employed her father.
The last line of that one letter she had read flashed into her mind, as it had so many times before, as she saw the road sign for Ward with an arrow pointing to the right. "I hope you will be able to forgive me some day, Gracie. I love you."
Could she forgive him? Was that why she had come? Even after the long flight and the equally long drive from the airport on unfamiliar mountain roads, she still didn't know.
Grace and her mother had always spent Christmases together, vacationing in Florida or the Caribbean. It was a way of distracting themselves from what they had lost. Now that her mother was remarried there was no place to go. They had invited her for Christmas, her mother and Ted, but she hadn't wanted to intrude on their first holiday together. So, here she was on the road to Ward.
Grace could see the lights of the little town shimmering below her, shiny and yellow against the snow, like the gold that had once been mined from the mountain. She turned off the main highway and shifted into low gear. The road down to the village was steep and narrow and snow-covered. Sand had been spread on the curves, but she still had to go slow. She wondered in which of the thirty or forty houses and old miner's shacks she would find her father. She pulled up in front of the general store. The porch light was on and the door was open. A young woman about her own age, dressed in bib overalls with braided hair hanging down to her waist, was crocheting behind the counter near a small wood-burning stove. Candy bars, cigarettes, and several brands of cough medicine lined the shelves behind her. The woman smiled at Grace and said, "Good evening. What can I do for you?"
"I'm looking for my father," Grace said. The plaintive tone of her own voice surprised her. She told the woman her father's name and immediately saw a knowing look of recognition. "Old Jim. He comes in here all the time. You must be Grace. He told me about you."
It seemed strange to hear her father called old. Grace remembered him as middle-aged. Of course he would be older now, in his late sixties. It pleased Grace to know he had spoken of her.
"Almost everybody is up at the church," the woman said. "I saw your dad go up about a half-hour ago. A retired preacher comes up from Nederbet every Christmas Eve. It's about the only time they have services here. You can leave your car out in front. It's easier to walk from here."
Grace slowly made her way over the footbridge spanning the ice-covered stream that wound through the center of the town. She could see the small clapboard church about 200 yards up the mountain. On top of the steeple there were green, blue, and red Christmas lights flashing in the form of a star. They appeared to be attached to the cross. Her hands trembled as she opened the door of the church. Would her father be glad to see her after all these years? Would he recognize her?
She spotted him, sitting by himself in one of the back pews. "Old Jim." The woman at the store was right. His hair was thin and completely gray. He was much heavier now. He looked tired, and, the thought pained her, very much alone.
The congregation stood up to sing "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing." The words of the familiar carol rang in her ears as she slipped into the pew beside her father. "Glory to the newborn King, Peace on earth and mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled."
She squeezed her father's hand and a smile came over his face in the same instant he turned to see her. "Grace," he said, "I'm so glad to see you."
"Daddy," was all she was able to say.
When the preacher gave the invitation to come forward for Christmas communion, Grace and her father walked up the aisle hand in hand.
Note: This previously unpublished story came as a gift of the Spirit to John in 1996 as he passed through Ward following a camping expedition in Rocky Mountain National Park with his two brothers, his son, and four nephews.
Good Stories
This Will Be a Sign
by John E. Sumwalt
This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.
Luke 2:12
Christ Church put on a live nativity every year about two weeks before Christmas. They had the perfect location downtown on the square across from the clock tower. Everyone who drove into the business district went right by the front lawn of the church. There were slums, and street people who slept in the park a few blocks away, but you couldn't see them from the church. They set the nativity up on the lawn on the designated evening after dark and flooded it with carefully placed spotlights. For anyone driving around the square it was a dazzling sight, a Christmas card come to life. When word got out people came from miles around, from all over the city and the suburbs.
At first it was just a few bales of hay stacked up to give some semblance of a stable, a couple of sheep and two sets of parents with small babies who took turns portraying the holy family. But as the crowds grew each year the nativity became a bigger and bigger production with shepherds, wise men, an innkeeper, King Herod, a small flock of sheep with lambs for the children to pet, a donkey for Mary to ride, cows with calves, chickens, ducks, geese, and, thanks to special arrangements made through the local Shriners, three genuine two-hump camels to carry the wise men as they followed the star. The star rolled along on a track which had been laid out across the roof line of the church. They rented doves one year to perch on top of the stable and coo, but they couldn't get them to coo on cue and they discovered that the pigeons that flew down from the clock tower could play the part just as well, and they were free, so that was the end of rented doves.
The latest addition had been a 40-voice angel choir, with the choir director Tom Grover playing the part of the archangel Gabriel. Tom loved to dress up in his flowing white robes with magnificent wings with gold glitter on the tips. He suggested that he carry a flaming sword when he made the announcement to the shepherds, but the director thought that would be too much. They did give him a special halo with soft blue light which made him stand out from the others whose halos were a much dimmer white. One of the guys in the tenor section said he looked like he was announcing a K-Mart special.
The angel choir sang from an elevated stage erected on the far edge of the lawn in front of the church's three large air conditioning units. Surrounded by clouds painted on cardboard, and raised and lowered hydraulically, it made for a wonderful dramatic moment when their lights came on and they appeared out of the darkness singing "It Came Upon the Midnight Clear." For the grand finale at the end of each half-hour performance, they formed themselves into a giant living Christmas tree and sang "Joy to the World."
One year, at their late summer planning meeting, the director announced that they needed a sign, a big billboard somewhere downtown, perhaps visible from the freeway, with a picture of the nativity and an invitation for everyone to come and see it at Christ Church. He said it would be a good way of expanding their ministry and it would be great publicity for the church. The senior pastor said that she knew a retired sign painter in the congregation and offered to ask him to paint the sign. Someone else offered to make arrangements to rent the billboard and to talk to some of the wealthy members about paying for it. Everyone thought it was a wonderful idea.
At their next meeting in mid-October it was reported that plans were well under way and the sign would be ready just after Thanksgiving. The retired sign painter had responded with great enthusiasm to the idea of painting the nativity on a billboard for all of the city to see. He said it had been a lifelong dream to paint a sign that would be a witness to his faith. He had asked for only one consideration -- "a free hand in painting the nativity as the Holy Spirit led" was the way he put it. And they were glad to agree. They had seen his work and they knew there was no one better in the sign painting business. No one was to see the sign until the unveiling on the first Sunday of Advent.
There were several more meetings after that. As Advent approached there was an air of excitement in the church like they had never experienced before. When word got around about the billboard everyone wanted to be in the nativity. They had to create several more roles: shepherd boys and shepherd girls, the innkeeper was to have children hanging on his arm this year with a wife doing chores in the background, there would be a dozen more angels, and the wise men would have servants following along behind the camels. They rented several more animals, including a goat and a flock of peacocks. It would add more atmosphere, they said.
The unveiling was scheduled for noon, after the last worship service on the first Sunday of Advent. The church was packed, and after the benediction the choir, dressed in their nativity costumes, led the whole congregation out the door, around the square, and down a couple of blocks to where the billboard was located near the downtown off-ramp next to the freeway. It was one of the best advertising locations in the city. Two hundred thousand people would see the sign every week.
The mayor of the city was to assist the pastor and the nativity director in the unveiling. The retired sign painter was standing by. It would be his moment of triumph. A newspaper photographer was to take his picture standing in front of the sign after it was unveiled. One of the television stations had sent a reporter and a camera crew, and of course, several people in the congregation had brought video cameras. Everyone had a sense that this was to be a historic moment.
The ceremonies started with a brief speech by the nativity director, followed by a few words of greeting from the mayor and a prayer of consecration led by the pastor. Then came the moment they had all been waiting for. The choir began to sing "Away in a Manger" softly in the background. The director signaled for the cloth that was covering the sign to be raised. They all craned their necks upwards and waited. And then they saw it. At first there was a kind of quiet murmur that rippled through the crowd, then gasps, followed by a din of wonderment which grew into what sounded like a roar of disapproval. They couldn't believe what they were seeing! It looked nothing at all like their beautiful nativity. The sign painter had painted a simple cardboard shack with a contemporary Joseph and Mary who looked very much like the street people who lived in the park a few blocks from the church. Baby Jesus was wrapped in rags and lying in a tattered disposable diaper box. There were no shepherds or wise men, no angels with gold-tipped wings. There was only a bag lady and a cop who had come by on his horse. They were both kneeling in front of the diaper box, and the babe appeared to be smiling at them. Underneath the picture were painted the words:
This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.
They put the best face on things that they could. The director said something about the church's ministry to the poor. What else were they going to say? They couldn't say that it was a mistake on live television, in front of the mayor and the whole city. But it was difficult to hide their disappointment. Everyone was gone within five minutes of the unveiling. The retired sign painter was left alone with the television reporter to try to explain his modern rendering of the nativity. But even he was beginning to wonder if he had made a mistake. His wife, his children, and his grandchildren had left with everyone else. He wondered if they would ever forgive him for this embarrassment to the family. Perhaps they would never go to church with him again.
It was on Monday morning, just after the church secretary came to work, about eight o'clock, that the phone started to ring. There were not only calls from within the city, there were calls from all over the country -- newspaper reporters, disk jockeys, talk show hosts; everyone wanted to hear more about the sign. And the calls kept coming all week. Soon everyone in the nation knew about Christ Church's unusual sign. The retired sign painter became an overnight celebrity. By Thursday he had been on two national talk shows and was scheduled for Oprah the next week.
The following Sunday the church was filled to overflowing at both services. The pastor was so taken aback that by the second service she had discarded her prepared notes and was talking about the miracle that God had worked among them. She suggested that while the nativity was a wonderful ministry, perhaps God was calling them to a new ministry with the poor and homeless. Perhaps they could start a shelter in the basement of the church, and maybe they could help the Habitat folks build and renovate houses in the slums of their city. When she was finished preaching, the choir sang "Joy to the World" as they led the congregation out the door, around the square, and down the two blocks to the sign. There they stopped and looked again at the child who smiled out at them from the rags and cardboard shack.
From somewhere near the front of the congregation there came the soft sound of a single voice. It was Tom Grover, the choir director, and he was singing:
What child is this who laid to rest, on Mary's lap is sleeping?
Whom angels greet with anthems sweet, while shepherds watch are keeping?
And then the choir and the whole congregation joined with him, singing with all of their might:
This, this is Christ the King, whom shepherds guard and angels sing;
Haste, haste to bring him laud, the babe, the son of Mary.
From Lectionary Stories: Forty Tellable Tales For Cycle C by John E. Sumwalt (CSS Publishing Company, 1991), pages 18-23.
Jo's Yarn Basket
Christmas Eve Magic
There's magic in the air at the family service on Christmas Eve at Wauwatosa Avenue United Methodist Church. Children who have been gathered in the parlor for a half-hour or more file into the front pews, grouped by costume -- shepherds on the right angels on the left, wise men, Gabriel, and the star in the front row. Mary and Joseph await their cue by the back door, and their real, live baby Jesus waits with Grandma or Auntie to take his/her place in the manger.
I inherited directorship of this pageant when I took the position of Christian Education Director eight years ago. It was conceived as a "walk-in" pageant, totally unrehearsed. All children -- visitors and regulars alike -- are welcome to take part. The costumes are displayed for them in the parlor, next to the sanctuary, and given out on a first-come, first-served basis. The pageant itself hasn't changed much over the years. High school students still read the Christmas story from Matthew and Luke. Middle schoolers try to snag the roles of the wise men, the angel Gabriel, and the star. It is carried atop an 8-foot pole, round and round the sanctuary while the congregation sings ALL of the verses of "We Three Kings," and alights in a flag stand behind the Holy Family when the wise men finally get to offer their gifts. Dozens of angels join Gabriel as the Heavenly Host, praising God and singing before dozens of little shepherds bowing in awe during "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing."
The biggest difference is the children involved. Our first baby Jesus is now a 3rd grader. Our son, who was in 5th grade our first Christmas here, is a college freshman. One of the high school readers from Christmas 1994 is now on our staff as the Senior High Youth Coordinator.
What never changes is the wonder: the faces of the young couples who portray Mary and Joseph as they lay their baby son or daughter in the manger; the angels, male and female, with their tinsel halos aglow; the faces of the little shepherds when they "hurry to Bethlehem" and find the real live baby in the manger; and last year, the face of the shepherd boy who put his finger out to be grasped in the tiny fist of baby Jesus, who was his own baby brother, and gave him a kiss.
