Woodbury Presbyterian Church
God’s Love in ACTION
“Play Time’s Over” (or “Time for Real Life”)
Luke 2:8-20,
The night was crisp but not too cold. The sky was clear and deep, deep blue, gently dusted with flecks of starlight. The air had an edge of expectancy, mysteriously pregnant with something momentous, maybe even miraculous. It was the perfect night for an outdoor Christmas play, a “Living Nativity.”
Karl thought back on the Christmas Pageants he had been in. He knew the script inside out. He could recite the story by rote, since at one time or another he had played just about every role but Mary.
He started out as a shepherd, folding up the sleeves of his
father’s flannel bathrobe and draping a terry cloth towel over his head. Do you
suppose they really had MacGregor plaid shepherds in
ancient
He had always really wanted to play the little drummer boy, but Pastor Charles wouldn’t even pray about it. Bible scholars can be so stubborn!
But all that was years ago, when Karl was a kid. This Nativity included both children and adults, and Karl was back to being a shepherd.
Now don’t get the wrong idea. Karl was a believer. He believed the whole Christmas story. Well, maybe he questioned a couple details: the star, the angels, the wise men, the virgin birth. He didn’t deny them, he just wasn’t absolutely sure either way. But he believed in Jesus. He understood that Jesus is the Son of God. And even though he didn’t go to church so much any more, that didn’t mean he had lost his faith.
Anna was an angel in more ways than one. That was the role she was playing in the Nativity, but it was almost typecasting. Anna was a lot closer to an angel than Karl would ever be to a shepherd, much less a wise man. She exuded a radiance from deep within that lit up a room whenever she walked in. She was almost always smiling. And even when she was sad – like when that jerk ran a red light eight years ago and snatched her father’s life away – there was still a gleam of hope in her eyes, glistening through the tears. She might not have been quite as “hot” as the waitress at the Blue Diamond, but she was three times as beautiful.
While she was still in college Anna started teaching Sunday School. The kids, of course, loved her. Even before the show that night they were running up to her, holding out their little arms in a gaping “Y” shape, yearning for a hug and squealing, “Miss Anna! Miss Anna!” And she snuggled and cherished each one as if he or she were the most important child in the whole world. It was easy to see why the church elected her to be an elder last year.
Anna had been like that as long as Karl could remember. In middle school she honestly didn’t know the difference between the cool kids and the geeks. She seemed to love them all.
He remembered
that day in the cafeteria when she was supposed to have lunch with him and
Now, as Karl stood in the starlight waiting for Anna to make her angelic entrance, he braced himself. He tried to get psyched for some of the best acting he would ever do in his life. For when the angel appeared, the shepherds were supposed to be terrified. “Sore afraid,” the old version said. But how could anyone ever be afraid of Anna? In rehearsal when she said, in that soft sweet lilt, “Don’t be afraid,” it cracked him up every time.
But the moment he saw Anna that night he forgot all about acting. He didn’t need to act. As she walked toward him, her arms stretched out in a gaping “Y” shape, she almost seemed to float. Maybe it was the night sky. Maybe it was the white satin costume. Whatever it was, for some reason Anna glowed more radiantly than ever.
Tenderly she
looked into Karl’s eyes, tilted her head slightly to one side and delivered her
line. But what happened was far more than a make believe angel addressing a
thespian shepherd. Anna was talking to Karl, personally, directly,
friend-to-friend when she said, "Do not be
afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.
Today in the town of
Don’t be afraid? Suddenly Karl was scared
to death! He realized he had been scared for a long time. In some ways he was
afraid of Anna, because her faith was so strong. How do you love people the way
she loves? How do you serve so selflessly, and seem to be happy about it? How
do you live with that kind of joy, day after day after day? It just isn’t
natural. Karl wanted to be like that. He wanted what Anna had. At least part of
him did. But he didn’t really understand it. And that freaked him out.
But on a deeper level he knew that Anna
wasn’t the one who really scared him. It was the Baby who shook him to the
core. The Savior. Christ. The Lord.
The “Savior” part didn’t bother him much.
Karl needed a Savior. He’d become a bit shady in the last few years. Oh, he
hadn’t been convicted of any felonies but, well, let’s
just say there were some things that Grandma Lilly would not have been very
proud of. In fact he and
Karl knew that Jesus came to earth to die
for his sins. He didn’t completely understand how it worked, but he knew that
that little baby who was born in Bethlehem grew up to lead a perfect life, and
that He was executed on a cross -- not for his own crimes but for the crimes of
everyone else. And everyone who believed in Him would have their sins forgiven.
And Karl knew that three days
later Jesus rose from the dead, and give eternal life to all his people. That
sounded like a great deal to Karl, and he believed it.
But even that scared him a little bit. How
could Jesus love him so much? Compared to Jesus, even Anna’s ability to love
was just a poor imitation. A rough approximation.
Still, Karl was glad to have a Savior.
And the “Christ” part was fine with Karl too.
Pastor Charles taught that that meant Jesus was the fulfillment of all God’s
promises in the Old Testament. That’s pretty cool.
But “Lord?” Lord was the part Karl wasn’t
crazy about. He didn’t want a Lord. Karl wanted to be his own boss. Karl wanted
to run his life Karl’s way. He hated the idea of anyone – even Jesus – telling
him what he should do and what he shouldn’t do. “A Savior has been born to you.
He is Christ, the Lord.” Karl shivered.
Yet here was Anna telling him, “Don’t
be afraid.” In different words she had said the same thing a thousand
times.
“But Karl, God’s way works better.”
“But Karl, following Jesus doesn’t take
the pleasure out of life. It gives life an amazing joy!”
“But Karl, Jesus came so that we could have
life. Real life.”
“And suddenly there was with the angel a
multitude of the heavenly hosts.” Actually it was just a dozen other
church members and the kids in the “cherub choir, but it might as well have
been an army of angels. There was Miss Julie, his teacher for Confirmation
class. There was Mr. Tim, who was always fixing something or another at the
church, and who took him and
Here’s the thing. Not one of them was
acting. For them this was real. They really meant what they were saying. As
Karl gazed into those raptured faces, which were
familiar and alien to him at the same time, he realized that these people had
something he lacked. Something he had tasted when he was younger, but couldn’t
muster any more. Anna had told him that his sparkle was gone, and now he
thought he knew what she meant.
Then a strange thought captured Karl’s
attention. “You know, these people are probably going to have more fun tonight
with cocoa, cookies and carols than I’ll have with four tequila chasers served
by sizzling Cindy.”
The next thing
Karl knew,
Karl shook his
head and blinked. He had less than twenty words of dialogue in the whole play,
and he nearly forgot to say them. Flustered, he sputtered, “L - Let us go
to
Turning toward
the
That was definitely not typecasting! Kimberly had been something of a wild child, and now she was a single mom. In fact, the little baby sleeping in the cushioned manger was her son, Tommy.
Nobody was terribly shocked when Kimberly turned up pregnant, but Karl still figured the whole family would be kicked out of the church. Maybe not officially excommunicated, but ostracized. Cold-shouldered to the curb. Instead the people loved Kimberly. Even Pastor Charles.
A few people tried to tell her what she had done wrong, but it was pretty clear that she already knew. So they reminded her of what Jesus had done. They assured her, with their words and with the way they treated her, that God loved her no matter what.
Somehow that changed Kimberly, to the point that she was now playing the Virgin Mary in the church Christmas play. Karl was surprised when he heard that she got that part, but Kimberly explained. “That’s how forgiveness works. I messed up. I tried to do things my way instead of the Lord’s way and it got me in trouble. Now I’ve got to raise a son with no daddy around, and that’s way harder than I ever dreamed. But Jesus never stopped loving me. That’s why He was born and that’s why He died, so people like you and me can be forgiven.”
A few days later she said something that totally blew Karl away. “You know, having Tommy helps me understand what God’s love is like. I mean, the feeling is bigger and stronger than anything I’ve ever felt, but it’s more than a feeling. Loving Tommy takes sacrifices. I have to get out of my warm, comfy bed in the middle of the night to take care of him. I change him when he’s made a mess – and he can make a humongous mess – and I clean him up and hold him close.
“That’s what God did for me. In Jesus, God left the comfort, the glory of heaven to take care of me. He came to change me when I made a mess – and I made a pretty big mess. But He keeps cleaning me up. And He holds me and loves me. And now I love Him more than anything.”
There was no denying that Kimberly was changed. A year ago she was a typical cliché party girl. But Karl was amazed at the person she had become, and he was so proud of her.
As he knelt before the manger, he saw that Kimberly had that same look on her face, that same loving glow that the other cast members had.
Karl averted his eyes from Kimberly to his napping nephew. Man, he loved that little baby. So vulnerable. So dependent. So tender and mild. Karl usually acted like he was too tough to fool with babies. But whenever Tommy would wrap his little fingers around Uncle Karl’s finger, Karl felt like his chest was going to burst.
In that moment Karl was struck by the fact that Jesus had been a baby just like Tommy. Vulnerable. Tender. Dependent. Tiny. Wow! God became a baby. What incredible love. For a moment Karl didn’t see Tommy any more. He saw Jesus in that cradle.
And there on his knees, face to face with Jesus, Karl got a good look into his own soul. He was an actor. A player. At some point he had started merely playing the role of a Christian, just as he had played the parts of a shepherd, a wise man, an angel and an innkeeper. He dressed the part. He could say all the right lines. But it was all an act. It wasn’t real. It wasn’t who he was deep inside.
So there on his knees, face to face with Jesus, Karl said a silent prayer. “Jesus, play time’s over. I want to be the real deal. I want to be authentic, like Anna and Kimberly and all those other people. Thank you for being born and dying so I can be forgiven. Clean me up and change me. I rededicate my life to You tonight. Come into my heart. Be my Savior … and my Lord. Amen.”
During all this time Karl had lost track of what was going on in the play. He opened his eyes, and there were the wise men! Each one laid his gift before the baby Jesus. One wise man gave frankincense. One wise man gave gold. One wise man gave myrrh. And one shepherd gave his heart.
The gold, the frankincense, the myrrh, they were all props. Fake. But the heart, that was the real deal.
Just then the music started. All the cast gathered around the manger for the grand finale. The boys and girls in the cherub choir started singing, “Joy to the world, the Lord is come!” Deep inside Karl something momentous started to stir. No, something miraculous. It swirled and swelled around in his gut until it filled his whole body, his whole soul, his whole being. Tears of joyful release welled up in his eyes.
Karl looked around at the audience members. Some of them were just standing there, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Karl wanted to go grab them by the shoulders and shake them. “Don’t you get it? This is good news of great joy! A Savior has been born to you. He is Christ, the Lord!”
Anna looked at Karl and giggled. The sparkle was back. More than ever before, Karl glowed.
“
“What do you
mean, ‘for real?’”
No, it was more than that,” Karl said. “Let me tell you what happened to me tonight. Play time’s over. It’s time for real life.”