Advent IV: The Nativity Play

Sermon by the Revd Dr Brutus Green

When I first arrived at St Margaret’s there hadn’t been a Nativity play for some time. Despite Covid we’ve had one every year since I arrived; I’m looking forward to seeing what Sunday School have put together this year. Zz had once again offered to play the donkey, but, amid accusations of corruption, I was told a child has already been given the part, which has rather put his long nose out of joint.

The nativity play is one of the greatest areas of confusion when it comes to reflect on the stories that have passed down to us concerning the birth of our Lord; So much so that I would bet money that even theologians would struggle to remember what’s in the Bible and what is just assumed; but even in the biblical accounts we might reasonably ask where the evangelists got their material from? Some elements, we may suppose, may have been passed on by word of mouth through his mother, but at some point, while the disciples were still making sense of what happened — that their teacher, who performed healings and miracles, was executed and returned from the dead — they also tried to give an account of what such a man’s birth was like.

But we don’t actually hear about how Bethlehem was overcrowded and there was ‘no room at the inn’; There’s no stable and no animals in the Gospels, though Jesus is put in a manger. In St Luke’s Gospel there are shepherds but no kings. But in Luke Jesus always has a close affinity with the poor. St Matthew’s Gospel bypasses the birth altogether and goes straight to the wise men — or were they kings? —, when Jesus is a couple of years old. But there aren’t three — although everything in fairy tales comes in threes. And part of the kings plot gives Matthew license to speak of Herod murdering all the infant boys, which is exactly what happened to Moses, and Matthew likes to draw parallels between Jesus and Moses.

The other two Gospels don’t even mention the birth of Jesus.

Christmas itself doesn’t become a religious festival until the 4th Century, when the date gets picked — probably as a one in one out for a pagan winter festival; Oliver Cromwell, of Parish of Putney fame, notoriously banned Christmas. It wasn’t popular and unusually he was executed a few years after his death and his head kept on a pole for twenty years. To this day the Parish of Putney celebrations of Christmas are muted and underwhelming.

Now if you have this North Putney mindset it’s easy to be sceptical of Christmas; if the Lord wasn’t born under a Christmas tree with a fairy on it then what are we all bally well here for? And while we’re at it, can we please sing In the Bleak midwinter, because everyone knows that Mary and JoJo trudged for days in the Middle East through the snow. Snow on snow on snow.

But the Gospels aren’t history. History didn’t really exist at this time. The Gospels are works of persuasion, devotion and teaching. Which isn’t to say that these things didn’t happen. Jesus definitely was born. But what matters to the Gospel writers is that you understand who Jesus is and what he was about.

So for Luke it matters that he was born in poverty — that he’s shared our difficulty — and the first people to see him were the least in society — filthy young shepherds in the fields. Matthew emphasises his kingship — so it’s the magi who come to find the new king of the Jews. And, he’s looking forward here to the crucifixion, as Jesus is executed under a sign reading King of the Jews and embalmed in the tomb with one of the three gifts, myrrh.

So perhaps we should have a second lobster in the Nativity, or an Octopus – that is a lot of legs David. Because the oceans too have need of God’s salvation – And if you’re in the National Gallery, browsing paintings of the Annunciation, referred to in today’s Gospel, you might be surprised that Mary is almost always some very white medieval princess, Maid Marion-ish, which isn’t very woke. But Christmas has always called for a little imagination.

And even when we think of Jesus’ name – written here in the today’s Gospel in capitals – we have his Latin name. Not Latin America – not for us Jesus. But Jesus, the Romanised form of the Greek, which is Iesous, a translation of his Hebrew name:  Yeshua. Though Yeshua is a shortened form of Yehoshua, So really we should just call him Joshua. (Which means ‘The Lord saves’.)

So it’s probably best to be experimental with Nativity plays. The church always has been and perhaps the evangelists were too.

The point of Christmas is to remind us that God came into the world as one of us, to share the good and the bad, the pain and the joy. And by gathering our loved ones and little ones for the play, we can remember that God is to be found in just this sort of setting, at school, at church or at home: this family gathering, whether rich or poor, with presents or with animals. And If you can’t say it as Christmas, when can you eh? Because at Christmas you tell the truth – as long as there’s love and people are brought together, it’s Christmas, and God will be there: As he is called Immanuel — Which translated is: ‘God with us’.  Amen.