The Community Nativity
Each year, the Lutheran Church puts on a Living Nativity. We have three Lutheran Churches in town. I don't remember their proper names, but this church, like Malcolm, is the one in the middle. And it has its own elementary school, the Nativity being performed on its playground. Outside. In December. In Northern Wisconsin.
I sat on hay bales laid out like ancient Greek stone seats. I was in the back row by the scaffolding, where a group of teenagers stood around the spotlights. They weren’t in costume so their "cool" is still intact. The other members of the youth group were standing around the hay bales like Sunday morning ushers, their cool completely extinguished by the mandatory bathrobes and burlap bag headgear.
There was a loud click as the playground went dark. The Nativity had begun.
The pastor's articulate voice boomed out of the darkness, giving me a small taste of what it was like at Creation.
"And it came to pass in those days..."
A spotlight snapped on. Mary, a teller at my bank, and Joseph, a local electrician with a full beard, walked around from behind the solid back wall of the stable. Mary had a "nine-month baby-bumper" plumping out her robe as Joseph led a scruffy grey donkey. It had a colorful entry rug thrown over its back.
The blacked-out speaker on the stable roof thundered as The Voice read Luke 1.
"Caesar Augustus...all the world...taxed..."
The donkey wasn't fond of the spotlight's glare. It moved back behind Joseph. Then a surprised Joseph started to hop as the donkey buried its head in Joseph's backside.
Mary floated on with serene reverence thru the large opening of the stable whose front three walls were posts with a double-line of long two by fours that made for see-thru walls around to the back. She sat on the hay bales surrounding the small, hay-filled deer-feeder.
Joseph skip-hopped up to the entrance, the donkey's face stuck in his...robe. He managed to get the donkey tied to the fence railing then sat across from Mary, the deer-feeder between them.
The donkey, to escape the spotlight, did a quarter-turn and effectively mooned the audience.
Tethered on the inside of the railing, near the opening and across from the mooning donkey, was a young goat. It munched hay as its curious face swung between the audience and the Holy Couple.
The Voice stopped for either dramatic pacing or to re-inflate the lungs before it thundered again.
"And she brought forth her firstborn son... wrapped him... in a manger..."
The seated Mary turned to face the back wall of the stable, hesitated, and reached down. Then, in a miracle that rivaled the Virgin Birth itself, she turned and placed the newborn Baby Jesus in the deer-feeder, her "nine-month baby-bumper" completely gone.
The Voice was replaced by a loud recording of "Away In The Manger". Mary and Joseph reached into the manger to touch the Baby Jesus. This caused their robes to move and we saw that both Mary and Joseph wore wool pants, thick socks, and felt-pack boots. A very practical and wise Holy Couple.
All this reaching into the deer-feeder had drawn the goat's attention. Suddenly it jumped up on the hay bale in front of the deer-feeder and thrust its head into the "manger". I don't know if this was an act of worship or consumption. The excited goat began to lift out the Baby by its swaddling.
Joseph, showing great reflexes for a new father, grabbed the goat and stopped The Baby's premature ascension. He wrestled the goat back to the railing and retied it, shortening the tether.
The Carnivorous Goat stared at the deer-feeder then turned back to the hay it shared with the donkey.
The music stopped. All was silent. And that's when I heard it. Like the soft blast of a trombone. But it wasn't metallic. It emanated from the audience-facing tail of the donkey.
The Carnivorous Goat cocked its head and stepped back. The silhouettes of front-row children pointed and laughed. A ripple of laughter moved back through the hay bales, soon followed by the organic smell riding the faint cold breeze. As it says somewhere in Psalms, “I was glad when they said to me, come -let us sit in the back row.” I was glad.
It was then that the pharmaceutical wonders of my water pill kicked in with a vengeance. As I hustled back to the car, The Voice escorted me out.
"And there were in the same country, shepherds..."
Watching TV later that night, I heard the small, confident voice of Linus tell Charlie Brown the true meaning of Christmas. It was the same as the one The Voice told me on the playground. And it’s all about “The Reason for The Season”.
"...a Savior, which is Christ the Lord..."