Thursday, December 19, 2024
Jeremiah 29: 11-13
For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope. Then when you call upon me and come and pray to me, I will hear you. When you search for me, you will find me; if you seek me with all your heart.
I’ve written several Christmas Pageant scripts along the way. I write “y'all come” pageants on the theory that rehearsals for a precise children’s pageant will really come out the same quality as an unrehearsed pageant. The kids will remember the feeling of participating, the teens will help out and the adults will celebrate that the kids are leading worship and that they look cute. In a “y’all come” pageant, everyone who wants to participate comes 45 minutes before the service and puts on a costume. Everybody gets to be whoever or whatever they want. If you have three Marys and two Josephs, then that’s what you have. I always advocate for toddlers being sheep and cows, because when they crawl all over it is in perfect character. There can never be too many angels.
This type of pageant needs a strong narrator and a few “nativity rustlers” to direct the characters. The narrator reads the story and when your costume matches the narrator’s lines you go to your spot in the nativity scene. If you can count on certain ringer families, you can have a few lines on 3x5 cards for those that can read. If out of town grandkids show up, they can jump in. If someone gets sick, develops stage fright, or any of the myriad of things that can go wrong, the pageant is still in good shape. I rather like this type of pageant, but it is way too casual for some, (and yet no one ever offered to take it over.)
At Christmas, I get too focused on perfection in other areas. I bake. I decorate. I get caught up in buying the perfect gifts and this Christmas being, “the best ever”. My favorite “y'all come” pageant has several puns. The narrator is the “Star” of the show and watches the Christmas story unfold from the highest heavens. The Star can see the big picture– can see God’s plan unfolding. If Christmas becomes about the perfection of the celebration and the details, we are in danger of missing the expanse of that plan.
In Jeremiah we read:
For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope. Then when you call upon me and come and pray to me, I will hear you. When you search for me, you will find me; if you seek me with all your heart.
The real message of Christmas is that the birth of Jesus is only the beginning of the plan. God wants the best for us. God wants us to have a “future of hope”. God reminds us that we are already perfect and loved…loved so much that Jesus comes to earth to show us how to live. We are so loved that God comes to be among us. Christmas is not in the details, but in the promise that we can find God in the manger and we can have Hope.
Rev. Stephanie McLemore
University Chaplain and Director of the Spiritual Life Center, Denison University