Re-Enactors All

I'm sitting on a bale of straw in the front of our church with a lantern in my hand.  Don't worry, its unlit, so the Tarkio First Baptist church is not going up in a blaze of glory this chilly December night. Though I did hear rumors that at least one of the coffee can luminaria lining the driveway did resemble an old rig fire at some point in the evening.

While the Scriptures relating Jesus' birth are read over the sound system and beloved melodies roll from the grand piano, inviting ''he who has ears'' to come and hear all over town, we don our robes and become reenactors of that night in history when shepherds and angels indeed shared the fields and skies near Bethlehem.

Each half hour is a new experience. Reverence, silence, wonder, and awe dovetail with giggles, wiggles, half pint angels and twinkling earth bound stars.  The sheep penned in the doorway of the sanctuary lend an authentically pastoral sound track and attract the attention of all the youngest visitors.  Their owner watches his flock by night' with crook in hand from a folding chair.

The lantern prop lets watchers know that I am the innkeeper.

4 And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David:)

5 To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child.

6 And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered.

7 And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn. (Luke 2:4-7)

As soon as Mary and Joseph trudge the aisle, climb the steps and ever so gently place baby Jesus in our manger, I follow staidly with my lantern and settle to observe the proceedings as shepherds of assorted sizes and shapes, Magi from young to old, 3'6" to 6'6", and pint sized Stars approach the holy family.


Sometimes the tableau is quiet and the piano accompaniment is introspective and meditative.  Other times it is as noisy with quiverings, stirrings, and rumblings as I imagine Bethlehem city was that season of the census.  If the inns were overflowing, no way an observer would pen ''how still we see thee lie''.  As I close my eyes to listen to Bev's arrangement of themes from ''The Messiah", I try to visualize the events of that night, filling the scene with crowd noise, dust, the bellowing of oxen, the hustle, anxiety, and irritation that travelers express even today in traffic jams and airports.  If I had been that innkeeper, what would I have been?  I do not think he was without compassion.  The Bible does not say this, but I even picture him as the first Good Samaritan of the New Testament, offering a place of rest after so many others said no or looked the other way.  It is comforting to think he was drawn back to the stable by a sense of wonder or the music of a chorus of angels. Perhaps so.  But like as not, the innkeeper was instantly engrossed and overwhelmed by a million other preoccupations and demands and the expecting family was a problem dealt with, then checked off.

         ''How silently, how silently, the wondrous gift is given
So God imparts to human hearts the blessings of his heaven"

Our Live Nativity is, more often than not, oh, so very alive and not a beautiful still life at all.  But it blesses on so many levels.  For those who dress up and stand their half hours, it is an opportunity to listen with two ears, your mind and all your heart to the matchless poetry that is the Nativity in Scripture. Those who come, eat, visit, and watch become part of a living church.  The little ones may think it is the world's best dress up game (stars! angels! headdresses! shepherd's crooks to trip one's siblings!) but whose heart would not warm to hear two year old Josh ask ''Baby Jesus go?" when the manger is empty.

"No ear may hear his coming, but in this world of sin

Where meek souls will receive him still, the dear Christ enters in.''

Let the Little Children Come

Home is more than three dimensions; time is of its essence.

We carry it with us as memory.

 Our corner of the Midwest is beautiful for those who can appreciate a landscape of subtle textures and harmonious hue, if one can overlook the periodic weather tantrums and months of Andrew Wyeth gray.
But never more so than after frost has sharpened the treeline, leaving branches bare and muffling the greening pastures with scarlet.

The church with the big white roof on the edge of town is home to my family.  The sanctuary has covered us during weddings, baptisms, Live Nativities, near sublime cantatas and near chaotic Vacation Bible schools. As behooves a gathering place for fallen man, it is forgiving of rambunctiousness, crayons in the pews, an occasional sucker, and other vagaries in behavior by those our Savior specifically welcomed in Matthew 19:14. " Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these."

The little children will be coming out of the woodwork on Sunday when parents, grandparents and other generous sorts open their trunks and hand out treats.  We'll fill the sanctuary with songs and silliness when the same sugar stoked kids practice the upcoming Christmas program.  And, before the afternoon is over, the church will empty into its backyard, where kids and helpers will carve letters into plump orange pumpkins, then march them out to the front yard, where they will be assembled into a coherent verse and brightly illuminated for all passers by.

I feel particularly rooted when I leave church, whether its after a service or taking the trash out to the dumpster after a pancake feed.  The vista from the parking lot is a microcosm of our lovely country.  Just behind the church is a cow pasture, the inhabitants of which have provided diversion and entertainment for little people ever since our church replaced the stained glass windows with clear glass.  Beyond the pasture is Tarkio Home Cemetery where family, friends, and forebears rest and we remember.  The bin site and elevator of what I still want to call Tarkio Pelleting is as close to a manmade skyline as we can muster on this rural prairie, but the rolling loess rises gently off the Tarkio River bottom east of town.  

This is the same vista we saw the stormy November day of Blake's grandmother's funeral and the boisterous April day Lee and Ryan married....the cows, the cemetery, the elevator below and the fields beyond.  In a couple of weeks, I'll look over that view after Aaron is baptized Sunday morning.

But today, there won't be time.  Today we'll carve pumpkins and corral kids and hand out treats. As silence falls again on the parking lot, the pumpkins will beam out a message straight from the little children Jesus loves.