© Rev. Lance Carrithers, all rights reserved.  Permission required to copy any portion of this message by any means. Email for permission: lance@firstchurchdc.com

Setting the Stage for the Nativity

"I Know Who I Want to Be"

Scripture: Luke 2:1-5

       We have a story to tell, one we every year--the birth of a babe born to set the world free!   But the telling of a really good story takes some preparation.

          I was a theatre major in college.  (Now, I know some of you are now thinking, well….that explains a lot!)  And theatre is just the art of telling a really good story in a way that people will not only hear it, but become a part of it.   Some of you are involved in the Depot theatre, or our own college and high school drama departments, and you know what sort of preparation it takes to mount a production—that is, to prepare for the telling of a really good story.

          This got me to thinking.  Advent is a season of preparation—the time we set aside in the church to wait and watch and prepare for the One God sends into the world.   And it occurred to me that we might consider Advent as a time of preparing once again for the telling and the hearing of this wonderful story.

          We know the basic plot.   It includes colorful characters, and a compelling script from two perspectives, one from Matthew, the other from Luke.  There’s the wonderful music, the carols of the centuries that enter our hearts, and of course, the unique and exotic setting of the Judean countryside and a tiny hamlet called Bethlehem.

          We’ll have a lot to do before Christmas Eve.    And it all begins with the characters.   Of course there’s Mary and Joseph, and the baby.   We’ll have to find a baby.  And the shepherds, and the angels.  Wisemen.  Tradition tells us there are three.   Those are the main players.   But depending upon how much of the story we want to include, there’s Gabriel, and Elizabeth and Zechariah.   Don’t forget the Innkeeper, the manger animals immortalized in the song “the Friendly Beasts.”  Oh—there’s also Simeon and Anna, those wise old souls who proclaimed this baby was indeed God’s Savior.

          They are all unique.  If age and gender didn’t matter, who would you want to play in the story?   Have you a character in mind?   Which one captures your imagination?  

          Is it Mary?  A young girl, perhaps only 13 or 14 years of age, already betrothed in an arranged marriage.   Just a kid really.  But an amazing one.  Who hears the angel’s news and ponders it, then sings her own song of faith proclaiming that God’s great day has arrived when the poor and the hungry will be lifted and fed.  Mary is the center of our story.  Young, small, selected by God for a mighty purpose!  Would you play Mary? 

          Or Joseph?  A working man.   The working poor we’d probably call him today.  He’s planning on marriage.  He’s older than she…perhaps it has taken him this long to prepare a home and a livelihood for a wife.   An Angel comes to Joseph too—in a dream.  Told him that though he had discovered that his young fiancée was pregnant, that he was to take her as his wife, and raise the child she had conceived.  And to name him Jesus, a derivative of the biblical name Joshua, which means savior.   Joseph awoke and obediently did as he was instructed.   Faithful, obedient, caring Joseph.  Would he be your man?

          If you could, would you choose to be the baby.   The one the fuss is all about.  The tiny child wrapped in swaddling cloth and laid in a manger.   It might take some doing…but would you want to be the baby?

          Some have told me they would love to be the angel—the one who comes telling the good news—to Mary, to Joseph,  to the Shepherds gathered on the countryside.   Are you an angel, with good news to tell?

          Or would you rather be a shepherd.  They might have been young—the Bible tells us David was just a boy when he tended his father’s flocks.    Or they might have been old and without a land of their own—like Moses who tended Jethro’s flock. To be sure, they weren’t wealthy.  They probably weren’t too civilized…the way men tend to be who spend more time with animals than they do other humans.   Shepherds watching their flocks by night, when the angels come to tell them the news!   Scared them half to death.  Afterward, they went to see this babe the angels told them about.   Want to be a shepherd?

          There’s wisemen too. Or kings.   Probably it would be closer to call them Ambassadors.  Special envoys sent by the rulers of foreign lands.   The Bible suggests they were astrologers—looking for signs in the heavens.  Following a star, they come too to see the child born to be king.   Which one…which wise man would you want to be?

           We haven’t said much about the others—Elizabeth, Mary’s cousin.  Mother of a child of her own who will have a great purpose in this story before its over.   And the Innkeeper.  Every children’s Christmas pageant has an innkeeper who frowns and proclaims in a nasty growl, “No Room!”   But whose heart leads him to take the young couple to his stable out back.   And the beasts.  I had to play the donkey that carried Mary to Bethlehem one year in the Church Christmas Play, but that’s another story I’ll have to share with you another time.

          Have I forgotten anyone?   Who would you want to be?   Which of these characters would you play?

          That’s the part I choose.  Herod.  King Herod.  Herod the Great.

It’s always fun to play the villain.   Juicy part too.   First, I’d be at my diplomatic best when I called for the foreign ambassadors to call on me.   Asking them to find the child and let me know so that I might worship him myself.

          Then, I’d be panicky and paranoid.  Why do people believe a king was born?  I am the king!  I would pace and growl out orders and have those dramatic secret asides that would let the audience in on the madness of my mind!

          Oh…Herod would be a great role.   Preachers make surprisingly good villains.   And with my size, and my menacing look, I think I’d make a terrifying Herod.  Don’t you? 

          I would play Herod.   I’d be good at playing him too.  And it would help me.   It would help me understand something about Advent.  And it would help me understand something about myself.  And it would help me understand something of the nature of God working in a brand new way to set free a world that is imprisoned by sin.  Broken.  Bruised.  In need of a savior.

          Perhaps no one in this story can help me get in touch with my own personal need for a savior than Herod.   Herod helps me move from the Christmas card version of the story to the reason this babe is sent to the world in the first place.  

        To save the world.   A world in need of a savior.   Broken.  Bruised.  Captive.  Full of sin, and hate, and violence, and darkness.   For whom did this child come but for those who are most full of sin, hate, violence and darkness?  The Herods of the world? 

          Advent is the time when we are to prepare…to take a moment and reflect upon the question “Why is this savior necessary?”   Before we accept this child as God’s own sent to be the savior of the world, sent to be our savior, we must first understand why Christ’s coming is necessary.  

          Take a look at our own sanctuary.  Already decked out for Christmas.  The tree, the trim.  The wreaths.  The boughs.  But don’t be distracted from the strips of purple here and there.   Purple.  The color of Advent.  Purple the color of a bruise. 

          We need a savior.   Herod reminds me of that.   It is our choice whether we accept God’s help or not.  Herod reminds me of that.  

          It is Advent.  And we have much, much more to do.   Perhaps next week, we’ll get this story all sorted out, and finalize the script.

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