The Big Question

“Mary, Joseph and the shepherds have already arrived safely at Bethlehem for the infant Nativity play in the school gym, accompanied by beautiful singing from P1, P2 and P3 children sitting on the floor in an open square.

“Teachers, parents and the school chaplain are all enraptured. “The choristers launch into We Three Kings. The changing-room door opens and in walk … two kings. But there’s a Nativity Play to complete, so two kings regally make their way to the stable round lines of happy children. After a significant delay, the third king arrives … clearly late, crown askew, red-faced and understandably harassed.

He decides there’s not enough time to be sedate, so he runs to catch up with his fellow-travellers. But it would take too long to come from the East round the singing children. He takes a shortcut through the rows of startled P1s. But he trips, falls, and keeps falling while arriving at Bethlehem just in time to meet up with his colleagues. “They present their gifts with care and dignity. But he trips over the manger, his gift of myrrh going one way, his crown another. The Baby Jesus falls out of the manger and rolls gently towards the astonished P2s. Consternation reigns. Teachers restore a semblance of order. There’s loud applause from assembled parents. And this school chaplain is doubled over with laughter.

“The gift of myrrh? The gift of mirth, more like. And the chaplain decides it’s been the best Nativity play – ever!”

“Excrement smeared the walls. I splashed across a floor wet with urine. But it was the smell that gagged and drove me out, back up the steps, and on to busy Manger Square peppered by soldiers languishing with casual glances and lazy fingers on hair triggers, eyed up by youths with steely eyes and insolent grins, scratching and itching for a fight and a revolution.

“This was Intifada 1992, Christmas Eve, Bethlehem. Intifada, a ‘casting off’ in every respect; in every respect an attitude of disrespect towards colonial rule, even its municipal public toilets.

“The air was fresher outside, but icy cold and laced with sleeting rain. Across the square was sanctuary, surely, in the Church of the Nativity, a barn of a packed basilica with a narrow staircase that led down to a silver star, the sight of my first Nativity.

“My faith, eight months old and infantile, was squeezed by a hot crowd soaked in holiness and respect for that place and dripping love for the baby once born there.

“Like donkeys they were led through the gap, and like cattle they knelt by the star, and like new parents their eyes were damp with joy.

“Many Nativities have come and gone since, and my faith, so mature now that its knees creak when it kneels, is swaddled still by the excrement, the urine, the smell, the sweat, the disrespect, the heat of holiness – not to mention the revolution in the air – that cradled it after its birth.”

“Nativity!

“To be quite clear about it, I like all nativities and I am quite biased about the work our Junior Church puts into them every year. I love to see the children growing in skill and in confidence.

“For me a Nativity is about relationships, about knowing the children and their talents, about knowing who is shy and hates to speak in public and who loves to shine. After all, the Christmas story is about relationships, is about God coming to us, to this world, so we get to know him better.

“So, I find it hard to pick out one Nativity over others. But I would like to tell you about one boy. He plays a wise man every year. That is so one of the teachers – dressed up as another wise man – can push his wheelchair close to the manger, because he suffers from cerebral palsy. He is a character and he will let you know if he likes his crown or his coat, he will let you know that he definitely does not like another verse of Away in a manger, but that he loves his big sister very much.

“He has many limitations, he cannot walk and he can only speak a few words, but he can perform just as well as the others.

“More importantly, he is loved by the other children, by the teachers and by the congregation. “He is very much one of us. “And Christmas is all about relationships.”

“In 2018 carols in the livestock ring at Ayr Mart saw 250 people come along, it was standing room only.

“Holding the service in a livestock market sale ring allowed us to use real animals so we had a donkey and sheep that came into the ring, these were a great hit with everyone, especially the children.

“The Nativity story was told through bible readings and by singing favourite carols. A choir sang some popular Christmas songs and a piper added to the atmosphere as did the ceilidh band. Meditations from those central to the Nativity were used to bring the story to life.

“All this followed by a great bring and share supper added to making it a fantastic evening.

“Not to mention the many Christmas trees in the foyer of the mart, which turned it into a magical forest.

“The evening was very moving and was summed up by a retired minister in his 90s who said he had been to many carol services in his time but this one was so special and moving in fact he said ‘it is the best I have been to.’ Some endorsement and so we plan our third carols in the ring on December 11 this time with a brass band leading us.

“Maybe this year we can add to our animals. I just hope the donkey and sheep don’t get too scared when the brass band strikes up – mind you they were OK with the pipes so here’s hoping!”

“Most memorable nativity? Aren’t they all? Well, not ‘unforgettable’, but certainly drifting back into memory at odd moments especially as Advent approaches, and ministers pray the Ministers’ Advent Prayer: ‘Loving Father, I know that the limitation is mine alone – but how many new ways can there possibly be of telling the Christmas Story?’

“Each Nativity – indeed, each performance of this year’s nativity reminds us that there are limitless ways. Each performance, in its glitches, in its childly, childlike (but never childish) improvisations to cover forgotten lines, far better than the prompter’s desperate attempts to get them back on track, is profoundly incarnational, the words taking flesh anew just as the Word was made flesh once, for all, for us and our salvation.

“So, most memorable nativity for me? A wee boy’s first role, as Wise Man #3, with one never-forgotten line, so that even twenty-five years later, he only has to say, in any context, ‘Neither do I.’ for them all to bellow back at him ‘THE STARS DO NOT DECEIVE!!!’? Or the wee girl, who had only the hee-haw of the donkey she was playing as a line – the last line of the whole Nativity – and carried it off magnificently.

“Because, as she proudly explained, she was asthmatic, and standing over a manger stuffed with hay. Incarnation. Us in our idiosyncrasies, loved and accepted as we are. That’s why a Nativity is a unique act of worship, and certainly not a chance for ‘the kids’ to entertain the ‘grown ups’…”