Violins screeching, recorders blasting. A little girl dressed as an angel, pushing a wise man off the platform. Two shepherds attacking each other with crooks while their headdresses slip down over their eyes. And the parents in the pews say’ aah’. The school carol service is in full swing. There in the corner on a pile of hay, stands the baby bath. Well, the manger actually – with somebody’s favourite doll in it.
It’s everybody’s favourite scene. We all love a children’s nativity. After all, ‘Christmas is for children’, and it’s about a baby.
It’s about a baby. That’s what does it. Everyone (well, nearly everyone) adores babies, especially other people’s – when they’re quiet. And this is a special baby too. This is God come to earth as a baby. And we can feel all warm and protective about him.
But there’s more to it than this. It’s more than a pretty picture and cute children. It’s more too than our chance to feel protective over the special baby. At the end, when the singing is done, and the story is told; the lights are dimmed, and the children’s faces are shadowed. The scene is merged with two millennia of Christmasses, and a part of us is taken back to the moment when God first became man. For a moment we catch our breath and are amazed at the enormity of it all.
Then stop, look again at the children’s faces, their wide eyes, bright with candlelight, are filled with wonder. For in that breathless pause, for the merest second, the presents and parties are forgotten by even the youngest, and there is a sense of the divine.
Here is more than just another baby. It is God’s son whose birth is celebrated. It is celebrated by people who would otherwise have no room for him in their busy lives. But on this night, the Holy Spirit moves with power, and on the upturned, wondering faces of little children, he shows us the love of God, present in our world, even today.