Christmas Pageants

This is the best Christmas pageant ever!

When I was a child I think I participated one time in a Christmas pageant. I do not know why it was only one; other than I may have protested a lot after that experience. Nevertheless, I remember it well. I think the year was December 1941; we were living in Annapolis, Maryland, where my father was stationed at the Naval Academy's seaplane squadron. The event took place at the Francis Street Lutheran Church; a congregation my parents selected because a fellow navy man and his family went there. The Francis Street Church, I think, no longer exists. You had to walk to get to it, and you know what that means in the age of the automobile.

At any rate, the pageant took place on an evening before Christmas (it may have been Christmas Eve, but that is a detail I cannot recall). The non-speaking role of shepherd became my assignment. My mother dressed me out in a bathrobe, made me go barefoot, and put a dish towel on my head, held there with a ribbon. I hated it, I hated it a lot. I was embarrassed to be seen in my bathrobe and going barefoot and wearing short pants in December was a dumb thing to do.

Before the night was over, however, the embarrassment was overcome when a little girl, about three years old, came onto the stage to sing a Christmas song. Wearing a pretty satin dress that had a short skirt she stood in the spotlight and looked out at the audience of beaming parents. No song came out, but she smiled and smiled and smiled. From off stage came a whisper, "Sing your song." The little girl just stood there. Everyone felt exasperated; especially me. I wanted that night to come to an end so we could go home and I could take off that bathrobe and the silly thing on my head.

Then, suddenly, the girl lifted her pretty dress and announced to everyone present that she had gotten a new pair of pink panties for Christmas. Her mom came racing up to the stage and the Sunday school teacher raced from the wings and the little girl was quickly escorted out of view. All the shepherds laughed so hard they were useless as adoring extras in the pageant.

Much later, when I was a deacon in a parish in New Mexico, a pageant was staged and took place at the church's altar. All the usual characters were there; shepherds, wise men, angels, and, of course, Mary and Joseph with a baby doll. In addition to the human being parts (less the angels) were stars. Very little children wore stars with cut outs in the middle so we could see their faces. One child, a beautiful little girl of three or four, was the Star of Bethlehem. Her role was to stand on a chair behind the altar (a free standing altar) and beam. As we watched the pageant progress we began to notice that the Star of Bethlehem was fading. She began to sink behind the altar and then catch herself and stand up straight again. This went on for several minutes and finally the Star of Bethlehem disappeared completely. The child had fallen sound asleep and was sitting on the chair with her head held up by the star cut out.

Christmas pageants a long standing tradition and probably can be traced to the middle ages. A child performing in Christmas pageants is likely, however, to be a fairly recent phenomenon and also likely an Anglican based tradition, maybe starting soon after the invention of Sunday school in the mid nineteenth century.

Watching children, especially our children, perform in Christmas pageants is heartwarming and adds to the beauty of the season, but we need to be careful in that these pageants actually teach the salvation story of God.

I have been to Bethlehem and visited the Church of the Nativity. It is an interesting place where devoted pilgrims come to pray prostrating over the supposed place of the manger.  For them the story of the birth of Jesus is not a sentimental tale of a baby and his mother; with Joseph as a silent secondary character. For the devoted pilgrim the story is a miracle of birth and hope. The children in the annual Christmas pageants (and their parents too) need to see and feel that miraculous hope in the story of Jesus' birth.

This does not require us to overlook the comedy of children struggling with standing in front of parents wearing funny costumes, and it certainly does require adults to lecture or preach to children about this miracle of life, but there is need to somehow teach the saving grace of God in Jesus Christ through these little plays.

As the children prepare for Christmas and sing carols and songs, let us tell them that the story is about them. The Nativity Story is about their life as much as it about the birth of Jesus. Remind them that God so loved the world that Jesus was born and given to us so that we may have life in abundance.