Christmas Message: "Imagine" (December 24, 2014, Family Service)

[This Message requires a crèche, a large star, 3 large pieces of cloth, incense, a lighter, two flashlights, a manger with hay, a baby doll, a shepherd's crook, a microphone for Gabriel, 3 crowns, sand, "gold", small gifts for the children to bring to the manger, and at least one assistant . Can be modified as needed.]

Can I have the kids come forward? I’d like to have all the kids seated up front on the steps and around me for this.

[Once kids have settled down] Okay, so you guys all know why tonight is a special night, right? It’s Christmas Eve, the night before we celebrate the birth of Jesus. One way we can celebrate something that happened a long time ago is by telling the story. We do that a lot in church. So tonight, I’m going to need your help telling this important story for everyone here, okay? I’m going to need some volunteers to help represent characters of the story, helpers to bring the figures to the crèche, but most importantly, I need the help of your imaginations. Can you do that for me?

Mary and Joseph

This story begins with a man and a woman: Mary and Joseph. [Choose two kids to stand on either side of me; Joseph has headdress and plain shawl, Mary has a large shawl that goes over her head.] They were engaged to each other, but before they could get married, something amazing happened. An angel appeared to Mary and said:

[Spotlight/flashlight on Mary, Voice of Gabriel says:] “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you. Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. The Holy Spirit will come upon you so that you conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High.” [Try to have Gabriel hidden so that the kids can’t tell where the voice is coming from.]

[Pause] Imagine. How surprised Mary must have been to see a real live angel, a messenger of God, speaking right to her! [Brief pause] How doubtful she must have felt, when the angel told her that she was going to have a baby not because of her husband, but because of the Holy Spirit! How silly that must have sounded to her!

[Pause] And imagine [spotlight moves to Joseph]. How Joseph must have felt when he heard this incredible news. [Brief pause]. The hurt he must have felt when he thought that his future wife had betrayed him, having a baby without him when they were supposed to get married. The love that he must have felt for Mary that made him want to protect her from shame. The confusion and doubt when that same angel came to him in a dream and told him to take Mary as his wife anyway, because the child that she was carrying was God’s.

[Pause] And imagine. [Second spotlight on Mary] The bravery that this man and this woman must have had to obey the angel, and to trust completely in God.

[Hymn; thank Mary and Joseph and have them be seated. Ask two other kids to bring the Mary and Joseph figures to the crèche. Pull manger with “hay” front and center.]

Birth

As the baby inside Mary grew bigger and bigger, the day came that the Emperor ordered everyone to go back to their hometown so that the government could count all of its citizens. What an enormous job! Joseph was living with Mary in Nazareth, so he had to travel all the way back to his hometown to be registered. Does anyone know what his hometown was called? Bethlehem.

Now, Bethlehem was about 80 miles from Nazareth. That distance might be kind of hard for us to imagine. Has anyone here ever been to Niagara Falls, or Buffalo, or Syracuse? It takes about an hour and a half, maybe a little bit more, to drive there. That’s about 80 miles. And if you drove 80 miles south, you’d be halfway to Pennsylvania! It would have taken Mary and Joseph at least four days, probably closer to a week because Jesus was so close to being born.

Now imagine. Having to travel that distance without trains or planes or cars. Having just a donkey and your own two feet to get you there. And imagine making that trip in sandals with a baby on the way. Imagine. How. Tired. Their. Feet. Must have been.

[Pause] Imagine. Arriving in Bethlehem after a long week of travel. There is no Holiday Inn waiting to greet you. No warm mattress for the pregnant Mary to lie down in. Houses in this time weren’t like our houses today: imagine one big room that your whole family would live in together. This house isn’t made out of wood, but out of mud and rocks and straw. And all the people inside don’t have their own personal space; there are probably times that they are crowded as close together as you are now! How does that feel?

These houses were so simple that the family probably brought their animals inside with them for the night—there was nowhere else to keep them safe! Jesus wasn’t born in a hospital like you probably were. He was born in one of these small, crowded mud houses. The best place to put the tiny baby was in the feeding tray that was inside with the animals for the night. [Place baby doll in manger] Jesus was born into chaos, surrounded by animals, far from the royalty that many Jewish people expected for their Messiah. As we place the baby Jesus into the crèche, come up and feel what the bed of the newborn king felt like.

[Hymn; child brings Jesus to crèche, other children come up to touch the hay]

Shepherds

[Pick up Shepherd’s crook, give to one child] This story doesn’t end there, does it? God wasn’t finished yet.

Imagine [Some lights off]. You are a shepherd in the middle of an enormous field. Not a soccer field or a football field, but a wiiiiiiide open field full of sheep, and it’s your job to take care of them, even in the middle of the night. [More lights off] The only light that you can see is the dim light of the stars and the moon. [More lights off] No streetlights, no flashlights—nothing. [All lights off] Nothing but silence, with a quiet baa every once in a while. [To individual children] Can you make one quiet baa? Can you do one even quieter? Very good!

So imagine. You’re in the field, watching your sheep, maybe drifting off to sleep. Imagine how tired you must be! [Pantomime yawning] All of a sudden, a bright light comes out of nowhere [Christmas tree lights on] No campfire or oil lamp you’ve ever seen could shine that bright! How might you feel? Scared?

But it was an angel that was shining brighter than the sun in the middle of the night! Just like with Mary and Joseph, the angel told the shepherds not to be afraid. He said:

[Angel on wireless mike] “I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.”

[All lights back on] Wow. Imagine, after seeing such a miraculous light and hearing these incredible words from the mouth of an angel, what the shepherds would do next. [Pause] What would you do? Would you trust the angel? Would you keep it all a secret? Well, the shepherds immediately went to see this thing that the angels described, and when they saw that it was all true, they told everyone that they met how amazing God is! So the very first people to know about Jesus weren’t kings or rich merchants; instead, God chose to share the good news with shepherds. Imagine!

[Hymn, choose child to bring shepherd to crèche, bring out crown, sand, incense]

Magi
[Give crowns to kids] The shepherds were not the only people to learn about Jesus’ birth. Imagine. You are a very important person, perhaps a king or a queen, perhaps a scientist who studies the stars. You live far away in the East. You have noticed a brand new star in the sky, and you want to figure out what it means. Imagine that in your studies, you find a Jewish prophecy—a prediction from the past—that says a ruler would be born in Bethlehem to lead the Jewish people, and that a star would show where he was.

So imagine that you decide to travel through the desert and wilderness for miles and miles in search of this ruler [pick up and drop sand]. The only thing guiding you…is that new star [point; light on star at back of sanctuary].

After weeks of following the star, you finally find this special baby, this king of the Jewish people. Imagine how excited you feel! To honor him, you have brought gifts. Do you know what they were? Gold, Frankincense, and Myrrh. These might not be the types of gifts that people today would bring a baby, but each one of these gifts was chosen for a special reason. Each one says something very important about Jesus.

The precious gold [lift up gold] represents his royalty: Jesus has been born King of the Jews! Frankincense [light incense] is a very special perfume that is used in religious ceremonies. This represents Jesus’ role as a priest, kind of like me or Father Craig, who helps the people be closer to God. Myrrh [light incense] is also an important perfume, but it is used for a very different reason: in Jesus’ time, myrrh was used when people died. The gift of myrrh represents how one day, this baby would grow into a man who would die to save all of humankind.

But for now, Jesus is a baby. And you, the magi, are overjoyed to have found him, and you bow before him to show respect and honor. Let’s all make a small bow right now [bow]. Imagine the sight of royalty, bowing down before a newborn baby! All things are possible with God!

[Hymn; child brings magi to crèche, incense out]

Our Gifts

Just as the magi brought gifts to Jesus to honor him and show their love, it is right for us to bring gifts to Jesus to celebrate his birth. Sometimes, it might feel like we have nothing to offer Jesus—certainly nothing as fancy as gold, frankincense, or myrrh! But the important thing is not what gifts we bring, but why we bring them. Tonight, we offer our gifts to Jesus as a celebration of God’s amazing love for us and an expression of our adoration of Christ.

After you bring your gift to Jesus, you may return to your seats with your family.

[Hymn; hand out small trinkets to children to bring to the crèche, children return to seats]