“The Coolwater Xn Church Xmas Xtravaganza”
Jennie and I along with Margaret, a member of St. Paul AME Church in Manchester where I am doing pulpit supply during the fall and winter months, are long distance planning for a children’s Christmas pageant this Sunday. Margaret told us the church hasn’t had one in years due to declining numbers of children (that number being zero on many Sundays). However, Jennie and I are bringing along four ringers this Sunday (namely, our four grandchildren). Add to that St. Paul member Becky’s three grandchildren who have come a couple times since Jennie and I have been there. That makes seven. We can do a pageant with seven. Don’t tell the adults I have designs on them to fill in as supporting actors - shepherds, heavenly host, maybe a lowing cattle or two for whoever draws the short straw. We can do this!
Our modest production brought to mind the shenanigans I engaged in twenty years ago when we did our first Christmas pageant at our new church start in Arizona. We were meeting in an elementary school cafeteria. I stood before my fledgling congregation that December and with as much of a straight face as I could muster told them I was planning a Christmas pageant to beat all Christmas pageants, a gala production that would put our church on the map and stake our claim to being one of the prominent, publicity-garnering, buzzworthy megachurches of the Valley of the Sun. I proudly announced The Coolwater Xn Church Xmas Xtravaganza. I threw the Xs in to catch people’s attention. Catchy marketing hook, huh? It was all about drawing a crowd (in baby Jesus’ name, of course).
The Xtravaganza was going to be at the Arizona Cardinals football stadium. Bono, the front man of U2, was going to be Joseph with Carrie Underwood as Mary. I was going to have the Three Tenors as the Three Wise Men and the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders as angels. For shepherds I had George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, and Robert Pattinson in mind. I was going to get George Lucas to write the script, Stephen Spielberg to produce it, and John Williams to compose the music. I had the chef from the Bellagio up in Vegas providing pastries and hors d’oeuvres. Billy Graham, Pope Benedict, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu were going to read Scripture. When mention was made of “a star in the east,” the stadium roof was going to open and we were going to unleash The Mother of All Fireworks Displays.
I told my seventy-five faithful they would each be receiving a thousand free tickets to hand out to their closest friends and neighbors. Talk about an outreach event! Talk about something to invite others to! Talk about making a splash and calling attention to ourselves (in Jesus’ name)! There just weren’t enough exclamation marks to punctuate what I had in mind. It was going to be spectacular!!!!
Long story short – it didn’t work out for a number of reasons. So instead, we did a Christmas pageant of our own and cast it with B list actors.
We didn’t have Bono and Carrie Underwood, but senior citizens Don W., Karen C., Sue C., and 10-year-old Kamryn M. said ‘Yes’ to being in the cast. We didn’t have the Three Tenors (Pavarotti died in September of that year), but teens Sam and Justin and Andrew said “Sure.” We corralled single-digit-aged Kristen, Emily and Allie to be our angels (the cheerleaders said they wouldn’t be able to make it back to Dallas in time for Sunday’s game). Eight and ten-year-old brothers Konol and Aidan were stand-in shepherds for the no-show movie stars. When the real-live baby that Jennie had lined up for us to be our baby Jesus bailed in the middle of the week (His parents said they had forgotten ‘a previous commitment’), I put in a last-minute call to Andy and Lori, a Coolwater couple, to see if they would grab one of their girls’ baby dolls and wrap it in a blanket. “Glad to,” they said. Phil H. filled in for John Williams and led singing. Though we couldn’t get the Cardinals stadium, our undeveloped desert property on the southeast corner of 56th St. and Dynamite Blvd. was open – wide open – so my son Will and I borrowed a portable stage, a friend’s generator, and a couple of can lights. We set up a few tables Gene L. bought at a garage sale. In the absence of the Bellagio chef, our Women at the Well Bible study group brought cookies and hot chocolate. There were no fireworks, but Dave V. brought his fire pit and Dick H. made a fire. Lucas and Spielberg cancelled, but Leslie G. and Rhonda T. wrote and produced Journey to Bethlehem. Will cobbled a manger together and strung some white lights from it. When all was said and done, we had not 70,000, but 70 or so who gathered ‘round our home-made stable and sang an a cappella “Away in a Manger.” The Mormon Tabernacle Choir we were not.
I sat beside Mary (twentysomething Laurie P. filling in for Carrie Underwood) because our original Joseph, Matt A. who was filling in for Bono got called in to work at the last minute. Yours truly filled in – a third-string Joseph.
While still lamenting what could have been at Cardinals stadium, I saw from my place in the stable four-year-old Allie B. in her angel wings standing at the head of the manger. The look in Allie’s eyes as she gazed upon the baby doll Jesus was the definition of reverent adoration. As our 70-strong Coolwater Portable Tabernacle Choir sang Christmas carols, Allie reached out and gently touched the infant in the manger. She did it several times. Oh, how gently she reached out and touched the baby. As if the real Christ child were in our midst.
And he was, of course. I heard the whisper of the Spirit say, “This will be a sign for you: you will find a babe wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger. Got that, Shirey? God doesn’t need satin and platinum. For those who have eyes to see, God’s stated preference is swaddling cloth and plain ‘ol unvarnished wood. Don’t ever underestimate how the Almighty can work through seventy or so cotton and denim cloth, unvarnished wood sorts of people.”
Coolwater was not the biggest, brightest, most bedazzling star in the constellation of Christ’s churches in Phoenix. Not even close. And it didn’t matter one iota because God was with us that night under the starlit sky. As we gathered together for our makeshift pageant,God drew near enough for each of us to reach out and gently, reverently touch Emmanuel.
I’m looking for it to happen again this Sunday morning at St. Paul’s in Manchester, capacity: 100. We’re hoping for two dozen.
Rupp Arena was not available.
A very Merry Christmas to you and yours.
