Category Archives: -Kelly Bixby

The Kingdom Belongs to Children

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Max crouched down, squished himself in between two other six-year olds and waited eagerly, like a compressed spring about to uncoil, for his turn.  He looked up at his older cousin, Alexandra, and whispered, “What’s a sin?”

He was a little embarrassed and hoped no one other than Alexandra had heard him. She had seen what was going on between him and the other boy. She would understand that it wasn’t Max’s fault he hadn’t been completely listening to Miss Becca, his vacation Bible school teacher.

He thought it was nice that some of the married teachers, including Miss Becca, didn’t always want to be called Mrs. So-and-So. Miss Becca let you call her by her first name, as long as you added “Miss” beforehand. Max first met Miss Becca in church. She sat next to him a couple times during worship service, and every now and then she taught his Sunday school class. Max liked the way she paid attention to him when he talked with her. She looked him right in the eyes and didn’t seem bothered by any of his questions.

Today, she asked that everyone call her Lady Becca. All the lady teachers, the girls, and she were strolling around like royalty, with their chins up and heads high. When she spoke, she didn’t pronounce words like she normally did. Everything she said seemed more proper and formal, and to top that off, she taught the boys how to bow and the girls how to curtsy.

“Too bad for them,” Max thought. Bowing was so much better. It didn’t require practice like the girls were doing. Boys were way more cool. They could pretend to be brave knights defending a kingdom. He was glad that his mom knew about the medieval theme and let him take a toy sword to the summer program. Swords weren’t normally allowed at church. Max figured this week would be fun.

When Lady Becca had explained what a sin was, Max was distracted by his new friend, Aidan, who kept trying to take Max’s sword away from him. “Just for a minute,” Aidan had pleaded, but Max knew better than to give up his plastic weapon. He might never get it back! It was no wonder he missed some of what his teacher had said. He was lucky just to have caught the most important part: only one person in all of history has never sinned. “But what exactly are my sins?” he silently worried.

Without hesitating, Alexandra simultaneously answered the question he asked out loud and the one he was thinking. She said, “A sin is anything you do that’s wrong.”

“Thanks, Alex,” he softly replied.

Alexandra preferred to be called “Alex.” That’s what her mom called her, what her dad called her, and what Max called her, usually. Alex was pretty smart…and she paid attention. Or, she paid attention…and was pretty smart. One way or another, she seemed to know about God’s son who came down from heaven to be with people. Alex was fourteen and old enough to be Lady Becca’s youth helper. All the teachers had at least one of the older kids to help teach the younger children about the stories in the Bible.

Lady Becca described Jesus as both God and man but a man like no other. She gave examples: He had never lied; never cheated; and never hit his brother, not even once. She said, “Lots of people liked Jesus because he was good at fixing things. Many people hated him because they didn’t know him very well.”

For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." Jesus' words as recorded in Mark 11:45 (NIV). Photo by Kelly Bixby

“For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” Jesus’ words as recorded in Mark 11:45 (NIV). Photo by Kelly Bixby

Alex added, “Other people had no feelings whatsoever about him, because they had never heard of him.”

Max took the piece of paper that Lady Becca held out to him. He noticed that it was shaped like a hand, so he held the paper up and compared it to his own. His palm fit inside the paper’s edges almost perfectly. It was as if Max had spread his fingers wide, plopped them upon a single sheet of paper, pencilled up and down, around and around, and then cut along all the lines to end up with the paper he was now holding. Max followed Lady Becca’s instructions and wrote his name in crayon on the front of it.

Lady Becca’s red velvet gown swept the floor as she continued moving about the room, passing from person to person, with the goal of giving everyone their own hand-shaped sheet of paper. She wore a stretchy silver fabric band around her head. It had one lone ruby-colored jewel in the center and wasn’t meant to look like a more elaborate, richly adorned crown. After all, she wasn’t “Queen Becca.” But she was dressed like someone who belonged in a castle.

When Lady Becca walked towards Lily, the tallest girl in the class, Max could see Lily’s eyes widen in anticipation. He didn’t think it was the paper she was excited about, however. He saw that she longingly eyed the bejeweled, golden scepter in Lady Becca’s left hand. The decorative staff was just slightly taller than Lily herself, who was about four-feet tall. Purple and gold ribbons streamed from the top of it to halfway down. Max guessed that each girl in the class was hoping for the opportunity to run around waving the fancy stick in the air and making the ribbons fly.

“Get rid of all the frilly stuff, and that stick just might come in handy,” Max muttered to himself. Then he heard the girls collectively sigh when their teacher tucked the prop under one arm so she could finish passing out sheets of paper.

Lady Becca said that everybody except Jesus sins. Max thought that didn’t make sense, because everybody knows the only things babies do are eat, sleep, cry and poop. Sometimes they smile too, but that’s just when they have gas. (He had heard that from Alex, who was too polite to say, “fart.”) How could they do anything wrong? They’re babies. Maybe Lady Becca didn’t know what she was talking about.

After thinking more about it, though, Max realized that Alex couldn’t be completely right either. Max was able to make Alex’s baby brother, Theo, smile just about any time Max tried. All he had to do was look Theo right in the eyes and make a big and wide smile first. A lot of times, he also made Theo giggle by doing that. There wasn’t gas at all.

It was nearly Max’s turn to stick his sheet of paper onto the Styrofoam cross that leaned against a makeshift wall inside the classroom. The paper was meant to represent one of Max’s sins, and the cross represented the real, wooden one Jesus died on. Around the top hung a crown of thorns similar to the one Roman soldiers had used to jab into Jesus’ head to torture him and make fun of him. This was serious.

Over 2,000 years ago, Jesus sacrificed himself so that people’s sins could be forgiven. Couldn’t God just change the rules? God can do anything He wants! Why did God want Jesus to die? Max was beginning to see how little he understood sin.

Max wasn’t quite certain if he was wrong by not sharing his sword with Aiden. “He should have brought his own. This one’s mine, and that kid might ruin it,” Max reasoned. Yet somehow, deep inside, he didn’t feel very good.

Max thought Aiden looked kind of sad. He remembered feeling that way himself just last week when Alex rode her bike over to visit. She brought an ice-cream sandwich. It was Max’s favorite and she knew it. She hadn’t given him even a tiny bite and ate the whole thing in front of him!

Lady Becca encouraged the class to study the Bible whenever they had questions about how God wants them to behave. She assured them that God wants what is best for them. She said, “God wrote a really long love note and sent his Word for all people. Sometimes it might seem confusing, but the more you read the Bible, the more you’ll come to understand how God wants you to live.”

Max thought, “Alex should take a look at what the Bible says about sharing.”

A moment later, Max surprised Aiden by lending him his sword. Then, the brave-hearted knight, Sir Max, approached the cross and let Jesus take away his sin.

The Gentleman’s Game and a Lady’s Ambition

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Dear Readers, I had planned on blogging about a carpenter who uses his professional talents in his pastime of building sand sculptures. I met him and his wife last month and intend to share his story. However, I’ve decided to submit that article to a magazine and hope to get it published. For those of you, especially Marc and Debbie, who were expecting to read that article here, this month, please stay tuned for an update. If all goes well, I’ll have good news, and the article itself, to reveal at a later date. For now, please enjoy the following post in which I explain my perspective on golf.

 

“Do you golf?” seems to be a polite way for a golfer to ask someone else what he or she really wants to know: “Are you a good golfer?” The first question, although gentle, invokes just a hint of tension, as in “What do you do for a living?” The more specific second question verges into the realm of intrusiveness, like “How much money do you make?” A skillful, confident golfer would respond with a simple “Yes,” and no additional explanation would be needed. Instead, both good and bad golfers feel compelled to either elaborate on their level of expertise or mention how little they get out and practice.

Married to a golf addict, I refuse to be a golf widow. I play just enough so that I have a decent drive, can handle my irons, and don’t embarrass my husband too badly on the course. The one important thing I need to work on, however, is establishing my handicap—a golf score average developed from more than par, in my case. Somehow, I’ve avoided attaching the tell-tale label of a high handicap to myself for my entire golf life. Now I’m realizing the far-reaching extent of not embracing the numbers and exposing my personal limitation: I’m in golf limbo.

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Oasis Nine fairway, The Phoenician. Scottsdale, AZ. Photograph by Greg Bixby, March 2015.

Without figuring out my own handicap, I can’t expect other golfers to know if I can keep pace or if I’ll slow the game down and burden my partners. To play with undesignated handicappers like me calls upon gracious golfers to offer, “We’re just out to have fun.” They’re good sports. Impatient golfers quickly seek to round out their foursomes with other known decent golfers so they can avoid the discomfort of playing with someone who makes it on the green in two and then takes a four putt.

I appreciate the gracious and can’t blame the impatient. Athletes of all kinds push themselves harder when they know their competitors have talent. Good golfers are motivated that way, and sometimes it’s just more fun to be evenly paired. You’re more likely to be relaxed and finish each hole in a timely manner.

Because I don’t play regularly, my golf prowess is subject to speculation. There’s a tendency for people who don’t know me to pass judgement on my abilities. Recently, after a round of golf during a business event, a woman who hadn’t been able to golf that day herself asked me if I had gotten stuck behind the slow group. I was pretty sure she thought I was the cause of the delay, since I was the only female in the two foursomes, and it’s often presumed to be difficult for women to keep pace with men. Feeling a bit defensive, I carefully selected my response and admitted to her, “I think we were the slow group.”

I wasn’t significantly hampering my group’s time, however. One of the men hadn’t played in several years. It took him a little while to get used to the set of clubs he had borrowed from the course and to find his swing again after being away from the sport for so long. As he worked out the kinks in his play, I relaxed more and more and shot one of my best games to date.

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Sunset view from the 8th tee, Desert Nine, The Phoenician. Photograph by Kelly Bixby, March 2015.

Even so, I realize that I have to focus on lowering my average score. Not just because of the image I want to present, but so I can enjoy specific privileges. I discovered that without an established handicap of 36 or less, I can’t play at world-renowned St Andrews Links, known synonymously as “the home of golf.”

Located in Scotland, St Andrews offers seven courses and is revered by golf’s masters. The Links’ online history page proudly boasts, “When Nicklaus waved goodbye to his adoring fans from the Swilcan Bridge in his final round of professional golf at the 2005 Open it demonstrated the warmth and affection held for the place where the game started.” Jack Nicklaus himself professed: “If a golfer is going to be remembered, he must win the title at St Andrews.” As one of the world’s most accomplished players, he achieved three Open wins, and two were at St Andrews on The Old Course.

St Andrews is open to the public and fuels the aspirations of amateurs, including my husband. His passion has infected me and I’ve learned to love and respect the gentleman’s game. After years of warming up to it, I’ve gathered fond memories: a particularly awesome chip shot and a well-played round; gorgeous scenery connected by expertly-groomed greens and fairways; intrinsic challenges and friendly conversations. My husband’s pilgrimage to golf mecca is important to me as well and is a part of our future plans. Someday it will be my turn to step upon the sacred ground at The Old Course, push my tee into the soft earth, and square up to take a swing. By nightfall, I’ll tally my score and tuck away favorite moments from across the pond. ‘Till then, I’m perfecting my answer to that loaded question, “Do you golf?” by simply and confidently replying, “Yes!”

Tall Tales

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My husband’s grandmother, Roseanna, prominently displayed a picture of herself sitting atop a camel. The memory had been captured while she was on vacation in Egypt. The one time I visited her home, I noticed the photograph hanging on a wall. I silently admired her sense of adventure and her confidence in traveling alone to a far-away land. She reminded me a bit of the protagonist from the movie, Titanic. In that film, the main character, Rose, nearly froze to death in icy Atlantic waters. She survived and went on to experience life in a way most women of her time didn’t even consider. Passionate living and unconventional travel set these two women apart from others. “Am I anything like them?” I wondered as I examined my own interest in traveling.

During my childhood, my family and I went on summer vacations. The six of us woke before the sun, piled into our Oldsmobile Delta 98, and drove to our destinations. Early into each drive, Dad rolled his window down to let in crisp cool air. His maneuver to jostle us awake worked as we quickly shivered away our sleepiness. Our chattering coupled with the whipping wind to keep him alert.

On one trip, I squished beside my three siblings into the backseat of the car for a nearly week-long drive from Michigan to California to visit relatives. We didn’t have to wear a seatbelt back then. Frankly, I’m not sure cars even had them. Unrestrained, my younger brothers were small enough to take turns lying on the rear window ledge. That helped my sister and me because we had more room to stretch out on the cushy backseat itself. Before you scream, “That’s not fair!,” know that we girls needed the extra space so we could take turns strategically holding a white pail for those moments when our motion sickness couldn’t be contained. Besides, we were older and bigger than them, and I’m sure we had “Called it!” first.

Monotony made the drive close to unbearable. To pass time, we counted red cars to compare with the number of blue, gray, white and black ones. We played “I Spy.” We kept watch for different state license plates. There was no mistaking us as The Brady Bunch, however. We weren’t cheerfully singing any song but did manage to get through most of one, “99 Bottles of Beer,” after running out of other things to do.

We tried to come up with novel ways to have some excitement and fun along the way. Once, my family took a short break at a rest stop so we could stretch our legs (that wasn’t the fun or exciting part). After we got back into the car, my sister and I convinced my brother, Gary, to crunch down on the floor and hide, while we girls patiently held in and planned for an expertly timed exclamation. After several miles one of us yelled out, “Where’s Gary?!” LOL, right? It didn’t take long for Dad to find Gary and for all of us to see that Dad didn’t appreciate our joke. I can’t remember which of us took the most blame, but Mom swears that it was really an accident when I was lost on a later trip to an aquarium.

We eventually made it to Grandpa’s house where I met aunts, uncles, and second cousins for the first time. We visited Great-Grandpa who was a talented landscaper earlier in his life. In his backyard, we saw a tree that produced two different varieties of fruit. He had created his own hybrid by splicing a fig tree and grafting some different fruit tree onto it. I can’t remember what the second was. His peach tree, however, left a bigger impression on me. It was naturally free from pesticides and the peaches would probably be considered organic by today’s standards. I still wish I had known that before taking a bite and seeing little squirming, protein-enriched worms inside. For many years afterward, I couldn’t make myself eat another peach.

Dad risked his life on a number of different road trips. On several occasions, he’d spot turtles trying to cross the freeways we were on. He reacted by quickly veering off to the shoulder and parking the car. The rest of us would then watch as he dashed in and out of traffic to collect an additional traveling companion. The clean, emergency white bucket came in handy to hold our newfound friend. Dad always knew what kind of turtle it was. The sharp jagged edges at the rear of its shell gave away its identity as a snapper. A pretty red bottom meant it was a painted turtle. A box turtle was just that: boxy. It was never long before we released each back into the wild.

Another time, he picked up three fiddler crabs and placed them in a paper cup for Gary to hold on the car ride. “Don’t spill them,” was barely uttered before those little creatures toppled over and scattered for hiding places. My sister and I shrieked and squirmed to get out of the backseat as quickly as possible. There was no way we were getting back in that car until those creepy crawly things were recaptured. The problem was that Dad could only find two. He wasn’t afraid of getting pinched by the renegade, so he tried to find that third crab by reaching into crevices of the cushions. Eventually, my sister and I were forced to get back into the car and we all continued on our way. That was a long, worrisome ride, but we were never bothered by the phantom fiddler, which had proven to be a great escape artist.

Dad had flown in tiny airplanes as part of the Air National Guard, and he vowed to never go on a larger commercial flight because he wouldn’t be given a parachute. If I were ever going to experience flying, it wasn’t going to be with him and the family. Therefore, my first plane ride was with friends on a trip to Florida for Spring Break. For several years, I could recall the handful of times I had flown. Most often, I dreaded air travel. Turbulence made me tense. I fervently reminded myself that flying really was safer than driving and that nothing was better than arriving at my destination in hours instead of days.

My interest in traveling grew after I married. My husband and I looked forward to annually visiting his brother and sisters who lived in California. After he and I had children of our own, I could no longer remember how many flights I had been on and my nervousness about flying was easing. Our children actually helped me get more comfortable with that. Their take on air turbulence was far different than mine. When we hit a rough patch for their first time, they squealed with delight instead of holding onto their armrests for dear life. What I feared, they loved.

When a friend of mine recently asked if I had a favorite vacation spot, I admitted that I didn’t. Each place I’ve been to has offered something unique and charming. Soon, I’ll tell you about them. You see, I’m afraid if I wait too long, I won’t be able to recall the details very well or that my perceptions will evolve into tall tales. While trying to verify some facts about Roseanna and her inspiring photograph, I found out that no one in the family remembers her having gone to Egypt…or having posed for a picture on a camel.

Open Mouth and Insert Foot

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Before I dedicated my mornings to writing, I woke to Live! with Regis and Kelly. Legendary showman Regis Philbin routinely bantered with his energetic, down-to-earth co-host, Kelly Ripa. The pair spent weekday mornings sharing the details of their ordinary moments and extraordinary lifestyles. They rehashed what they did the night before, described where they ate and which Broadway show they had seen, and revealed how they handled common family concerns. Additionally, they offered sports commentaries and kept viewers abreast of the latest breaking news. In as much as Seinfeld was plugged as “a show about nothing,” I considered Live! with Regis and Kelly to be a show about anything. I was impressed with the hosts’ ability to simply talk to one another while multitudes of people tuned-in to hear their dialogue. For years I was entertained as I watched the pair interview guests and converse with ease over just about any topic that came to mind. They had a talent that I admired and a skill that I never mastered.

Speaking in front of even a small audience of friends has repeatedly proven to be against my better judgment. I’ve learned through wobbly knees, rapid heartbeats, trembling hands and a quavering voice that I’m among those suffering from a fear of public speaking. Luxuriously, I dodge the podium as much as possible. Unfortunately, there are some casual, unavoidable social settings, which make me uncomfortable too. I’m afraid that I may say something that doesn’t make sense or that could be taken in a way I don’t intend.

My worst fears were realized during a recent visit to my husband’s workplace. Of all people, he knows that my thoughts may evolve into untrustworthy utterances. He’s witnessed them, unscreened and with just enough whimsy to embarrass me, leaping from my mouth. Yet despite his understanding of my quirky nature, he bravely took me around to say hello to some of his co-workers.

First, I asked one woman if she had been to lunch yet. Under normal circumstances, that would have been an innocent question. My husband and I were, after all, on our own way out to eat. It was the topic on my mind. But before I could take the question back, I remembered that my husband had rescheduled a business lunch meeting, with this woman and another co-worker, so that he could take me out that day instead. Ugh! I received an awkward stare and flat response from the woman that, no, she hadn’t been to lunch. At which point, I probably should have invited her to go with us, but I wasn’t picking up on any warm and loving vibrations. Redirect: “So, are you ready for the holidays…?”

Moving on, slowly behind my husband, I resisted the urge to drop to all fours, tuck my tail between my legs, and bolt for home. Instead, I followed his direction and was led to meet and greet more people. I gained a little confidence when someone I knew joined us on our quest to minimally disrupt the diligent as we paraded throughout the building. I should have anticipated, however, that the sense of safety provided by larger numbers couldn’t protect against self-inflicted torture.

We found friendly and familiar Andy sitting inside his office. He’d worked with my husband for years, but I hadn’t had many opportunities to interact with him. Spying family photos on a ledge, I walked towards them to have a better look at Andy’s young children. An adorable girl about the age of five was clearly his daughter. She looked so much like him. My brain processed what I knew of Andy and came to rest on the fact that he had both birth and adopted children. Before I could form a more constructive statement, I heard myself blurt, “Oh, she’s so cute! Is she your daughter?”

I swear there was no inflection on “your,” and I think I could have recovered from that question. But my husband, being no help whatsoever, was already laughing and interjected, “Does she look like the postman? Or did that picture come with the frame?” Ugh! I rambled on and hoped no one could hear me through all the noise being made. “I mean, is she from your own loins…?” Awkward joined now by archaic. Darn those Bible studies!

Can’t we go to lunch yet? I wondered. More frantically, I inwardly pleaded, Beam me up Scotty! A moment later, I was ahead of my husband and fleeing to the safety of the elevator. We were getting closer and closer to the exit. I was nearly free from faux pas. Then I heard him quite seriously ask, “So, do you want to go say hi to my boss before we leave?”

No Greater Gift

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Stained glass depiction of Joseph's encounter with God's angel. The Church of St. Joseph, Nazareth, Israel. 2014.

Stained glass depiction of Joseph’s encounter with God’s angel. The Church of St. Joseph, Nazareth, Israel. 2014.

“I’ve got pageant on the brain.” It’s a temporary affliction that I most recently revealed to my friends one evening while we were playing Euchre. The conversation had been swimming around careers and responsibilities, and at some point I squeezed in my earth-shattering news: I’m directing the Christmas pageant at my church and am preoccupied with the planning.

Two years ago, I took on the endeavor for my first time. When I told one of my best friends, she surprised me by laughing. So much for the vote of confidence, I thought. Then, I realized that she grew up with me and she remembered what I was like as an adolescent. Back then, I hated speaking in public, was never in a play, and quit going to church sometime during high school. Upon reflection, her reaction seemed somewhat appropriate, except a lot had happened since our childhood. Little by little, God had prodded me until my faith had grown strong enough that I could be trusted with telling His story.

I knew organizing the pageant would be a huge responsibility. Parents wanted to see their children participate in an appropriate demonstration that would honor Jesus. Children expected to have fun while being part of an important presentation. And God seemed to be nudging me to deliver the pageant in a way that would help others appreciate the unique circumstances surrounding His Son’s birth.

Did I understand the historical event well enough to accurately portray Jesus’s entry into the world? Not entirely. But I have heard it said that if you really want to learn something, then you should teach it to someone else. Since I would be doing both, I felt obligated to look for reliable information. I consulted several different sources, sifted through books and articles, garnered what I needed, and wrote the script for The Story of Jesus’s Birth. The pageant was introduced to my congregation as the “Authentic Christmas” story because I hoped to do away with many common misconceptions and show people a more realistic rendition of the miraculous event that took place over 2000 years ago.

I didn’t want to rewrite history, but I found many tidbits that warranted my tweaking of the traditional Christmas pageant. Here are some of the things I found interesting and the ideas that took shape.

Jesus fulfilled more than three hundred prophecies, an astounding number considering they were written over four hundred years before He was born. His birth, life, and sacrificial death were foretold well before he walked the earth. His role as savior was long expected.

Stone feeding trough. Photograph taken by Kelly Bixby in Megiddo, Israel. 2014.

Stone feeding trough. Photograph taken by Kelly Bixby in Megiddo, Israel. 2014.

Joseph’s arrival back in his hometown of Bethlehem for the census may have been similar to our modern day experiences of going home for a holiday. Sometimes we have to sleep on the couch because Auntie Em is in the spare bedroom. It doesn’t mean we can’t stay; we just get whatever space is still left. The familiar misconception of a callous innkeeper may have evolved from nothing more than a tired and grumpy cousin who didn’t get to sleep in his own bed one special night. The place offered to Mary and Joseph could have been the only room of his house that wasn’t already overflowing with relatives and other guests. It would have been the lower portion of the resident’s home (a multi-level cave) where valued animals were routinely brought inside at night. There they were safely protected from loss and theft while the owners slept in an upper room. No one really knows if any animals were present and lying near the baby Jesus on the night of His arrival, but there is evidence that Jesus’s bed was a stone feeding trough, not a wooden manger, built into the lower room.

Under normal circumstances in ancient Israel, Joseph wouldn’t have been in the room when Mary gave birth. He would have remained close by and quick to enter after Jesus was cleaned and swaddled.

Below the ornamentation and decorative tapestries is the ground of a cave presumed to be the birthplace of Jesus. The Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem, Israel. 2014.

Below the ornamentation and decorative tapestries is the ground of a cave presumed to be the birthplace of Jesus. The Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem, Israel. 2014.

There isn’t any biblical mention of angels being present in the stable when Jesus was born (despite artistic renderings and popular crèches), but they are part of the story. First, the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary to tell her she would conceive the Son of God and that her old and barren relative, Elizabeth, was also pregnant (with John the Baptist). Then, an angel, presumed to be Gabriel, appeared in a dream to Joseph to explain that Mary’s conception was miraculous. God’s messenger instructed Joseph to name the expected baby Jesus. On the night Jesus was born, a single angel–once again presumed to be Gabriel– appeared to shepherds to announce Jesus’s birth and encourage them to go to Bethlehem and see the baby. A host of angels joined Gabriel and the shepherds, praised God, and proclaimed peace to those who please God. Joseph was visited at least two more times by angels giving warning or instructions that led to Jesus’s safety.(NIV)

Jesus was officially given His name during the time of circumcision, when He was eight days old.(NIV)

When Jesus was no younger than forty days old, He was taken to the temple to be presented to the Lord and dedicated into serving Him. During the ceremony, Jesus created quite a stir when two faithful servants recognized the infant as the Messiah (Christ). Simeon prophesied Jesus’s suffering and death, and old Anna, a prophetess, spread the news of the infant Messiah’s arrival to those looking forward to redemption.(NIV)

Wise men, commonly referred to as Magi, came to worship Jesus, but not on the night of His birth. Their visit may have taken place as long as two years afterwards. So in our pageant, the unnamed Magi from the east humbly bowed before a toddler Jesus as He stood beside his mother in their home, not a stable. The visitors were most likely not kings, but they may have been astrologers or advisors to kings. There was more than one Magi, but the Bible doesn’t specify the exact number. Tradition, whether right or wrong, sets the number at three.

Jesus was taken to safety in Egypt, thus spared from paranoid King Herod’s orders to massacre all the boys in Bethlehem who were two years old and younger. This tragedy is pretty well known, but it is often left out of Christmas pageants. One reason is that this tale is gruesome and unsettling. Even I glossed over sharing this part of history because the pageant was ending and I wanted a softer transition into a joyous closing hymn. I would have liked to have explained that more than baby boys would have been killed. In their fury, it’s presumed that Herod’s army didn’t take time to figure out which babies were boys and which were girls; and if parents tried to protect their children, they may have been killed too.

Scene from “The Story of Jesus’s Birth.” Photograph taken by Lynn Rife. 16 Dec. 2012

Scene from “The Story of Jesus’s Birth.” Photograph taken by Lynn Rife. 16 Dec. 2012

Overall, our pageant looked fairly traditional. Youth portrayed every part. They became fluffy sheep, brilliant angels, and humble shepherds. As wise men, they looked like kings, complete with two-legged camels trailing behind. The highlight was still the scene with a costumed donkey that came to rest next to Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus. Did anyone notice the non-traditional yet more realistic stone manger? Was anyone surprised to learn about Simeon and Anna? Or that Jesus was at least two years old when the Magi bowed before Him? I had achieved my goal of introducing lesser known details into our rendition of the Christmas story. I hoped that many were inspired to wonder what that night was really like.

The pageant required long hours of planning and the support of a small army of family and friends. Together, we survived the crazy, energetic practices and embraced impromptus by our young actors. There were tears (mine) during group prayer and joy as I watched God’s precious children welcome and worship baby Jesus. The parents smiled. The children beamed. I was amazed by it all and felt like the one who had the most fun.

“Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.” –Jesus

SOURCES:

Bart D. Ehrman, “The Myths of Jesus,” Newsweek 17 Dec. 2012: 26-28.

Bert Gary, “Are Kids’ Christmas Plays Biblical?” downloaded Nov. 2012 <http://bertgary.blogspot.com/2009/01/are-kids-christmas-plays-biblical.html>.

Daniel B. Wallace, “The Birth of Jesus Christ,” Bible.org downloaded 7 Nov. 2012 <https://bible.org/article/birth-jesus-christ>.

The NIV Study Bible, ed. Kenneth Barker (Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1995) 1436-1439, 1533-1538.