The Peace Of Christmas Series

Dave Barry talks about one of his most vivid childhood memories of Christmas. It was the annual Nativity Pageant at St. Stephen's Episcopal Church in Armonk, NY. It involved almost all the Sunday School kids, and Mrs. Elson, who had experience in the Legitimate Theater, was the director. Barry says, “She would tell you what role you would play, based on your artistic abilities.

“Like, if your artistic abilities were that you were short, you would get a role as an angel, which involved being part of the Heavenly Host and gazing with adoration upon the Christ Child and trying not to scratch yourself.

“Above your angels, you had your three shepherds. Shepherd was my favorite role, because you got to carry a stick, plus you spent most of the pageant waiting back in the closet with the rope that led up to the church bell and about 750,000 bats. Many were the happy rehearsal hours we shepherds spent back there, in the dark, whacking each other with sticks and climbing up the ladder so as to cause bat emission products to rain down upon us.

“When it was our turn to go out and perform, we shepherds would emerge from the closet, walk up the aisle, and hold a conference to determine whether or not we should go to Bethlehem. One year when I was a shepherd, the role of First Shepherd was played by Mike Craig, who always, at every rehearsal, would whisper: "Let's ditch this joint." Of course this does not strike you as particularly funny, but believe me, if you were a 10-year-old who had spent the past hour in a bat-infested closet, it would strike you as amusing in the extreme, and it got funnier every time, so that when Mike said it on Christmas Eve during the actual pageant, it was an awesome thing, the hydrogen bomb of jokes, causing the shepherds to almost pee their garments as they staggered off, snorting, toward Bethlehem.

After a couple of years at shepherd, you usually did a stint as a Three King. This was not nearly as good a role, because (a) you didn't get to wait in the closet, and (b) you had to lug around the gold, the frankincense and of course the myrrh,

Nevertheless, being a Three King was better than being Joseph, because Joseph had to hang around with Mary, who was played by (YEECCCCCHHHHHHH) a girl. You had to wait backstage with this girl, and walk in with this girl, and gaze upon the Christ Child with this girl, and needless to say you felt like a total wonk, which was not helped by the fact that the shepherds and the Three Kings were constantly suggesting that you liked this girl. So, during the pageant, Joseph tended to maintain the maximum allowable distance from Mary, as though she were carrying some kind of fatal bacteria (Dave Barry, “Young Frankincense,” The Miami Herald, December 22, 1985).

Being Joseph in the annual Christmas pageant was difficult, but it was worse in the real world. Joseph and Mary had been planning a wedding when God told them to prepare a nursery (Mike Fogerson). Imagine Joseph’s disappointment when Mary told him, “I’m pregnant.”

According to the custom of the day, the engagement period was a time to prove the purity of the bride-to-be. They were engaged for a year, and if, during that year, the woman showed no signs of pregnancy, then everybody would know that she was a worthy bride—pure and chaste for her husband. But if her belly began to swell, everybody would look at her as a whore, an object of ridicule and shame. Her fiancé would call off the wedding, and sometimes the community would stone her. Nobody ever expected it to happen. They just waited a year to get married, because it was customary.

Well, imagine Joseph’s shock when Mary told him she was pregnant. WE know that it was by the Holy Spirit, but JOSEPH doesn’t know that, yet. The only conclusion he could come to was that his bride-to-be was messing around with another man. To say the least, Joseph was disappointed. No. He was devastated!

And perhaps, some of you find yourself in a similar situation. Perhaps, there is a broken relationship, or the death of someone you love, and the pain of loneliness is very acute at this time of year. Perhaps, you just feel empty in the midst of all the tinsel and lights. Your plans have failed. YOU have failed, or maybe you’re just not satisfied with what life has given you up until now. Christmas can be a disappointment for many. But

GOD CAN TURN YOUR DISAPPOINTMENTS INTO DREAMS COME TRUE.

Your hurts can become halleluiah’s! Your pains can become praise.

How? you say. Well, if you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn with me to Matthew 1, Matthew 1, where we see how God turned Joseph’s disappointment into a dream come true.