The Word Became Flesh and Blood

Growing up in the First Presbyterian Church of Tonawanda, New York, I sang in the junior choir and attended Sunday School and the worship service each week. The sanctuary at Christmas was glorious, aglow in the wash of candlelight and echoing with historic carols. But the highlight of each Christmas season was the annual Christmas pageant, the nativity story with bathrobes and tinseled angel wings.

The First Presbyterian production was impressive, and casting for the pageant was a formidable task. The kindergarten children were little cherubs who knelt beside the baby Jesus, and I appeared in that role around age five. But following that stellar performance, the female roles were quite limited until junior high when one special girl was chosen to be Mary.

Since my Aunt Florence was in charge of the pageant, I assumed I had a good shot at the coveted part, but another young woman get the plum role of Mary in my first year of eligibility. I was the angel Gabriel, attempting to keep my balance while standing on a wobbly ladder with arms outstretched. By the following year, I knew it was now or never. But with no advance warning, my Aunt Florence decided to change the traditional pageant to some random Christmas drama – with no nativity scene.

To say I was scarred for life by that decision is an overstatement, but I never did get to play the role of Mary. Of course, at age ten or twelve I didn’t know who this ancient woman really was. Yes, she’d ridden a donkey to Bethlehem, given birth in a stable, and laid her newborn baby in a manger. But I had no idea that the news of a pregnancy would have been a problem (naiveté was still alive in children in the 60s), nor did I comprehend the prophetic words of Simeon in the temple that a sword would pierce Mary’s own soul. All I knew was that Mary wore the pretty pale blue robe and looked beautifically at her baby while the cherubs fidgeted and the angelic choir sang.

In Barbara Robinson’s “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever,” her uproarious account introduces the tough-as-nails Herdman family as they bully their way into the lead parts in the Christmas pageant. The narrator describes the day of the performance: “Imogene Herdman [Mary] was crying. In the candlelight her face was all shiny with tears and she didn’t even bother to wipe them away. She just sat there – awful old Imogene – in her crookedy veil, crying and crying and crying. I guess Christmas just came over her all at once, like a case of chills and fever. And so she was crying.”

In that moment, awful old Imogene Herdman understood the pain and the joy of Mary’s heart. I’ve been there as well in these days leading up to Christmas 2014, as I’ve felt the pain of the sword that continues to pierce the soul of our world. The unrest marching from Ferguson, Missouri across our land, the slaughter of the innocents in Peshawar, Pakistan, and the memory of Sandy Hook Elementary School deeply trouble my soul. I long for the “peace on earth and mercy mild” that Charles Wesley claimed in his classic carol, but somehow we’ve lost that message.

Did Mary know that peace and mercy? Chris Eaton and Amy Grant imagine Mary’s thoughts in their song, ‘Breath of Heaven.” Mary asks, “In a world as cold as stone, must I walk this path alone?” The Christmas narrative itself answers Mary’s question. “They will call him Emmanuel, which means ‘God with us”’ (Matthew 1:21).

The sword still pierces Mary’s soul and our souls, but John gives us good news (1:14) – we are not alone. “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.” When the First Presbyterian pageant took a different direction (leading, sadly, to its demise), my mother rescued the sacred, scarred baby Jesus doll from a forgotten shelf and took him home. Today, the baby Jesus still resides in my mother’s home, a poignant reminder that “the Word became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood” (John 1:14, MSG). Might the baby find a place in your home as well. Merry Christmas.