The Ongoing Pageant of Salvation

“I knew something like this would happen,” Alice Wendleken whispered to me. “[Ralph and Imogene] didn’t come at all! We won’t have any Mary and Joseph—and now what are we supposed to do?”

Ralph and Imogene were there all right, only for once they didn’t come through the door pushing each other out of the way. They just stood there for a minute as if they weren’t sure they were in the right place—because of the candles, I guess, and the church being full of people. They looked like the people you see on the six o’clock news—refugees, sent to wait in some strange ugly place, with all their boxes and sacks around them.

It suddenly occurred to me that this was just the way it must have been for the real Holy Family, stuck away in a barn by people who didn’t much care what happened to them. They couldn’t have been very neat and tidy either, but more like this Mary and Joseph (Imogene’s veil was cockeyed as usual and Ralph’s hair stuck out all around his ears). Imogene had the baby doll but she wasn’t carrying it the way she was supposed to, cradled in her arms. She had it slung up over her shoulder, and before she put it in the manger she thumped it twice on the back.

I heard Alice gasp and she poked me. “I don’t think it’s very nice to burp the baby Jesus,” she whispered, “as if he had colic.” Then she poked me again. “Do you suppose he could have had colic?”

I said, “I don’t see why not,” and I didn’t. He could have had colic, or been fussy, or hungry like any other baby. After all, that was the whole point of Jesus—that he didn’t come down on a cloud like something out of “Amazing Comics,” but that he was born and lived…a real person.

Next cam Gladys, from behind the angel choir, pushing people out of the way and stepping on everyone’s feet. Since Gladys was the only one in the pageant who had anything to say she made the most of it: “Hey! Unto you a child is born!” she hollered, as if it was, for sure, the best news in the world. And all the shepherds trembled, sore afraid—of Gladys, mainly, but it looked good anyway.

[Then] everybody in the audience shifted around to watch the Wise Men march up the aisle.

“What have they got?” Alice whispered.

I didn’t know, but whatever it was, it was heavy—Leroy almost dropped it. He didn’t have his frankincense jar either, and Claude and Ollie didn’t have anything, although they were supposed to bring the gold and the myrrh.

“I knew this would happen,” Alice said for the second time. “I bet it’s something awful.”

“Like what?”

“Like…a burnt offering. You know the Herdmans.”

Well, they did burn things, but they hadn’t burned this yet. It was a ham—and right away I knew where it came from. This was the Herdman’s food-basket ham. It still had the ribbon around it, saying Merry Christmas.

“I’ll bet they stole that!” Alice said.

“They did not. It came from their food basket, and if they want to give away their own ham I guess they can do it.” But even if the Herdmans didn’t like ham (that was Alice’s next idea) they had never before in their lives given anything away except lumps on the head. So you had to be impressed.

“They’re ruining the whole thing!” Alice whispered, but they weren’t at all. As a matter of fact, it seemed to me that the Herdmans had improved the pageant a lot, just by doing what came naturally—like burping the baby, for instance, or thinking a ham would make a better present than a lot of perfumed oil.

Usually, by the time we got to “Silent Night,” which was always the last carol, I was fed up with the whole thing and couldn’t wait for it to be over. But I didn’t feel that way this time. I almost wished for the pageant to go on, with the Herdmans in charge, to see what else they would do that was different.

Everyone sang “Silent Night,” including the audience. We sang all the verses too, and when we got to “Son of God, Love’s pure light” I happened to look at Imogene and I almost dropped my hymn book on a baby angel.

Everyone had been waiting all this time for the Herdmans to do something absolutely unexpected. And Sure enough, that was what happened.

Imogene Herdman 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.

For years, I’d thought about the wonder of Christmas, and the mystery of Jesus’ birth, and never understood it. But now, because of the Herdmans, it didn’t seem so mysterious after all.

When Imogene had asked me what the pageant was about, I told her it was about Jesus, but that was just part of it. It was about a new baby, and his mother and father who were in a lot of trouble—no money, no place to go, no doctor, nobody they knew. And then, arriving from the East (like my uncle from New Jersey) some rich friends.

But Imogene, I guess, didn’t see it that way. Christmas just came over her all at once, like a case of chills and fever. And so she was crying.

As far as I’m concerned, Mary is always going to look a lot like Imogene Herdman—sort of nervous and bewildered, but ready to clobber anyone who laid a hand on her baby. And the Wise Men are always going to be Leroy and his brothers, bearing ham.

When we came out of the church that night it was cold and clear, with crunchy snow underfoot and bright, bright stars overhead. and I thought about the Angel of the Lord—Gladys, with her skinny legs and her dirty sneakers sticking out from under her robe, yelling at all of us, everywhere:

“Hey! Unto you a child is born!”

(The Best Christmas Pageant Ever; chapter 7, abridged)

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Thank you so very much for the gift of sharing this space with me. I count it a privilege to walk with you, and an honor that you contribute your time and thoughts. My goodness, friends, it has been quite a year… I don’t know about every one of you, but I can safely say that Jesus has been refining me with a vengeance these twelve months. So many reasons to praise my Lord and Lover! My year was a journey of heartbreak…of farewells and hellos…belly laughs (the kind that leave your eyes watering and your muscles sore)…painful obedience…joy…of desperate tears and determined worship…bubbles…coloring parties…ping pong…of grace and marvelous provision. And all of this becomes part of the beautiful, quirky, upside-down, perfect pageant the God is putting on to display His eternal Glory.

So, my friends, I will wish you a Merry Christmas; but I do not ask you to celebrate “The True Meaning Of Christmas.” Goodness no! That would be silly!

I want you to celebrate much more than that.

“After all, that was the whole point of Jesus—that he didn’t come down on a cloud like something out of 'Amazing Comics,' but that he was born and lived…a real person.” The child narrator of The Best Christmas Pageant Ever is on the right track: Jesus’ birth is only part of what we commemorate with Christmas. The Son of God never sought to glorify himself, but instead to draw our gaze to the Most High God. And just as our Lord’s arrival on this earth is a part of the whole holiday, Christmas itself is only part of the whole.

I want you to celebrate so much more than Christmas.

Christmas—the events of which spanned nearly two years in actuality—is one of countless examples (Unquestionably vital! But still “one of,” not even the penultimate) which draw our gaze toward, and demand our worship of, the One and Only Lord God. Christmas would be meaningless without the thirty years of quiet, obedient, private ministry and the final three years of adamant but unassuming public ministry—all without sinning. Christmas holds little significance without the willing, tortured death of an innocent man atoning the guilt for all humanity past and future…and his triumphant resurrection three days later. Christmas is augmented by his forty-plus days of continued teaching afterwards (such a beautiful affirmation that he is indeed Emmanuel “God With Us”) before returning to his Home in power and glory. The Son’s entire earthly ministry pointed to the Father, as God unfolded the climax of His divine pageant over the course of roughly thirty-three years.

But that’s just the climax. I want us to celebrate so much more than the climax.

The whole Jesus’ earthly ministry serves as the fulfillment and the promise within the grand epic of Time. Thirty-three years preceded by millennia of God’s glory: The creation of this world and mankind. Our unified relationship with the Creator, the Source of Life. Our choice to sin and consequent separation from the Source of Life. The Lord’s gracious promise of reconciliation. And long, generations of deliberate, painful groundwork to gradually prepare humanity for the arrival and sacrifice of a Savior—the double fulfillment of a holy promise by One who is holy, and the presentation of a new promise.

Time continues to unfold. Thirty-three years succeeded by millennia of God’s glory: Continued generations of gathered understanding. Furthering of the larger, corporate relationship—with each other as redeemed brothers and sisters, and with our holy God through the intermediary of His Son by way of the Holy Spirit. The deliberate, painful groundwork continues, preparing humanity for the fulfillment of that last promise.

God’s pageant continues. The play is not played out. And we, as players on this stage, are commanded and privileged to participate in this grand epic of Time created by the Most High to display His glory. But even when this epic ends, the pageant will continue. Into all eternity. Because God will never run out of glory to display.

We are witnesses and participants of more than this epic, more than Time. We need to celebrate much more than that.

Thank you for participating in this pageant with me, dear friends. Let's give the best, most authentic performances we can! “Hey! Unto you a child is born!”