As we began our work, it wasn’t long before I noticed that there was something wrong with the salt dough that I’d mixed at home the night before. It somehow wasn’t firm enough to allow the kind of detail necessary for the task. I had assigned the most dependable children the job of crafting the Holy Family, the angels, the kings, and the shepherds. These kids were getting frustrated, though, as Mary’s head drooped softly down onto her belly; the angel listed to the right as if she had already sampled too much holiday eggnog; the shepherds’ staffs folded in two; Joseph’s legs crumpled beneath his heavy body; and the necks of the three kings slumped over into each other like some kind of royal three-headed monster.
That’s when I noticed that the rest of the kids weren’t following directions at all. They weren’t fashioning people from a French village. When I asked them what they were doing, almost every single child said that they were making an animal. Dogs, cats, birds, ponies, and giant insects were taking shape all over the classroom. Only one child was creating a human being. When I praised him and asked him which character he was making, he proudly proclaimed that he celebrates Hanukah, not Christmas. He was therefore making a Hebrew soldier from Masada, for the Hanukkah story.
My blood-pressure started to rise as I watched my brilliant lesson plan go totally awry. Children, however, are creative, and they didn’t let my worry over accuracy ruin their project. They ignored my hand-wringing and single-mindedly continued their work. The next week, when the figures were all baked and painted, the children proudly wrote “Joyeux Noel” above a manger scene … that held a baby Jesus, a couple of bowing angels with droopy wings, a Hanukah soldier, and a whole zoo full of snakes, giant worms and escargots, legless dogs and cats, and quite a number of rocks.
All those years ago, I prayed that the parents who came to our school Christmas program wouldn’t look too closely at our lumpy animal Nativity. I cringed at the thought of this monstrosity sitting out in the hallway, where parents could shake their heads over the low artistic standards that I was setting for their children, as well as the lack of French apparent in the lesson. Now that I think about it, though, the children in my French class were showing profound theological insight in their determination to bring animals to worship the baby Jesus. Think of all the carols that we sing about the ox and the ass standing around the manger. Legends, poems, and stories have sprung up all over the world about the role of animals in the stable in Bethlehem. Even though the Gospel stories about Jesus’ birth don’t mention the animals at all, our human imaginations have filled the stable with sheep and goats, oxen and donkeys, camels, and birds, and even spiders.
Did you know that it was St. Francis of Assisi who is credited with putting together the very first crèche? He’s the one who first put the donkey and the ox into the Nativity story.[1] Leave it to St. Francis to think to include the animals! I wish that I’d known that fact thirty years ago, since I was teaching my infamous Christmas lesson at a school named after St. Francis!
Like the kids in my French class, we human beings seem to be drawn to the idea of bringing animals in to worship the baby Jesus. Our desire to include our animal friends in the wonder of Christmas might be more than pet-loving sentimentality on our parts, however. When God came down to earth as a human baby, God didn’t come only to heal and save our human flesh. God came into the world to remake the whole of creation, animals included. When Jesus is born, the powerful Word through which God made the heavens and the earth enters history in the form of one human being. In Jesus, we see God’s loving face, but we also see the sons and daughters of God that we, too, are meant to be. Theologians have called Jesus the “second Adam,” born to bring to earth human nature as it was meant to be before the first Adam ate that piece of fruit in disobedience to God. Christmas is like a second creation, a creation necessarily touching the lives of all creatures, not just human ones. As Rowan Williams puts it, Jesus’ birth “announces that creation as a whole has found its purpose and meaning, and that the flowing together of all things for the joyful transfiguration of our humanity is at last made visible on earth.”[2]
Psalm 96 sings a beautiful song in anticipation of the moment in which God will come to re-create the whole world. As Christians, we can hear in tonight’s psalm the joy of all creation as it views humanity transformed by God’s presence on earth: “Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice: let the sea roar, and all that fill it; let the field exult, and everything in it. Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy before the Lord; for he is coming, for he is coming to judge the earth. He will judge the world with righteousness, and the peoples with his truth.”
Imagine with me right now the animals in a vast Christmas crèche, joining in the psalmist’s song of praise at humankind’s transformation. Can you see them gathering like we do tonight—and every Christmas Eve, year after year—looking toward the baby in the manger and longing with heart and soul for safety, for healing, for the redemption of Creation? I can see them--from the Arctic snows, to the African plains, to the deep oceans, to the American cities--all turning toward Bethlehem and raising their voices in song:
The horse sings: “Thanks be to God that I will no longer have to carry soldiers into battle.”
The seal and the fish shout: “Thanks be to God that I will no longer swim in black, sludgy seas, despoiled by human greed for oil.”
The polar bear cries: “Thanks be to God that my home will stop melting and I can feed my hungry babies once more.”
The dog and the cat shout: “Thanks be to God that I will no longer be beaten and mistreated by tortured souls.”
The ox rejoices: “I’ll be able to lead a plow once more on family farms!”
The elephant and the leopard chime in: “I’ll no longer be slaughtered by greedy humans looking for ivory and skins.”
The grass exults: “I’ll cover the barren plains once more with green, gold, and silver.”
The mountain rejoices: “I’ll no longer be shattered and hollowed out in an insatiable search for treasure and fuel.”
All living things look at the new baby, and they know that the old ways will soon die. They know that God has come to remake the world, that God has come in truth and righteousness. As Auden writes:
The sullen limpet,/ the exuberant weed,/ The mischievous cat/ And the timid bird,/ Are glad for your sake/ As the new-born Word/ Declares that the old/ Authoritarian/ Constraint is replaced/ By His Covenant,/ … Run to Bethlehem./ Let us run to learn/ How to love and run;/ Let us run to Love.”[3]
Let us all run, hop, crawl, fly and slither to the stable. Let us take our places around the baby who comes to set all creation right. Let us stand hand in hand with all creatures, bearing witness to the power of God’s Love for all that God has made.
Amen.
[1] Thank you to the Rev. Dr. Michael Jinkins, who brought this subject to my attention in his blog, found at http://www.lpts.edu/about/our-leadership/president/thinking-out-loud/thinking-out-loud/2014/12/16/-christmas-eve-and-twelve-of-the-clock-
[2] Rowan Williams, Choose Life (New York: Bloomsbury, 2013), 57.
[3][3] W. H . Auden, “For the Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio,” from “Vision of the Shepherds,” part II.
No comments:
Post a Comment