Here follows one of my all-time favorite – and true – Christmas stories:
A few years back, Margaret and I were co-pastors of Burnside UMC in East Hartford, Connecticut. It was Advent, the Sunday on which worship included the annual Children’s Christmas Pageant. The kids – our two included – were very excited and particularly because we were taking the pageant on the road to a local nursing home that afternoon, to be followed with ice cream sundaes at Friendly’s.
The pageant was a triumph at both church and nursing home – and over their ice cream, the children chattered about how great it had been. Said one little girl with absolute sincerity:
“It was neat. The old people really liked it. And we only made that one mistake when the Wise Men came in before Jesus was born – but that was OK because the old people had never heard the story before.”
A few years back, Margaret and I were co-pastors of Burnside UMC in East Hartford, Connecticut. It was Advent, the Sunday on which worship included the annual Children’s Christmas Pageant. The kids – our two included – were very excited and particularly because we were taking the pageant on the road to a local nursing home that afternoon, to be followed with ice cream sundaes at Friendly’s.
The pageant was a triumph at both church and nursing home – and over their ice cream, the children chattered about how great it had been. Said one little girl with absolute sincerity:
“It was neat. The old people really liked it. And we only made that one mistake when the Wise Men came in before Jesus was born – but that was OK because the old people had never heard the story before.”
It is a charming story, both because of a child’s naiveté and the “old folks” willingness to be surprised by a story they’d known for a lifetime. Beyond being charmed, we may take from this a deeply important lesson: If we find ourselves incapable of a child’s innocence at Christmas, we can at least be willing to allow that innocence to speak to our hearts once again.
We adults too often take our life “cues” from CNN, Fox News and the Wall Street Journal which, likely as not, reflect the world view of political philosopher Thomas Hobbes (d. 1679), who wrote that life is “ugly and brutish.” And who can argue that there is no truth to this assessment? Count the wars and civil wars currently being fought across the globe. Read about the disparity which exists between the obscenely rich and the poorest of the poor. Note the rising lack of interest in religion and sacrificial living in this nation. Oh yes, there is much darkness in the world. Yet. . .
. . . it is to this world that a child is given. It is upon people like us, surrounded by darkness, “that a great light has shone.” “And,” as St. John the Evangelist reminds us in the first chapter of his Gospel, “the darkness has not overcome it.”
A little child would understand this – not with her mind perhaps but deeply, I think, in her heart. Are we, who have lost the innocence of childhood, prepared to receive again our great hope, the Word made Flesh?
God bless us all in this season of preparation and joy!
-Pastor Mark-
We adults too often take our life “cues” from CNN, Fox News and the Wall Street Journal which, likely as not, reflect the world view of political philosopher Thomas Hobbes (d. 1679), who wrote that life is “ugly and brutish.” And who can argue that there is no truth to this assessment? Count the wars and civil wars currently being fought across the globe. Read about the disparity which exists between the obscenely rich and the poorest of the poor. Note the rising lack of interest in religion and sacrificial living in this nation. Oh yes, there is much darkness in the world. Yet. . .
. . . it is to this world that a child is given. It is upon people like us, surrounded by darkness, “that a great light has shone.” “And,” as St. John the Evangelist reminds us in the first chapter of his Gospel, “the darkness has not overcome it.”
A little child would understand this – not with her mind perhaps but deeply, I think, in her heart. Are we, who have lost the innocence of childhood, prepared to receive again our great hope, the Word made Flesh?
God bless us all in this season of preparation and joy!
-Pastor Mark-
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