This past week we had Chapel Chats with the Pre-School. I love Chapel Chats. I love little kids. I love their energy and their excitement to hear a story. I love telling stories about how much God and Jesus love us—especially to little kids. Someone told me once, I forget who, that I have a pre-school teacher inside of me; I never thought about it but I guess they’re right.
December is the month to tell the Christmas story, and I told how Mary had a baby in her tummy but she had to have her baby in a barn. She and Joseph didn’t have a crib for the baby either, so they laid him in a manger. I then had to explain that a “manger” is a big box full of hay for food for the animals. That was a bit of a stretch, because the kids all brought food for the Chester County Food Bank, and I thought, “Wouldn’t it be cool if they filled the ‘manger’ with food… Jesus was poor… we’re helping poor people…” I know it was all very symbolic and simplistic all at the same time. I think some of the older kids “got it” (mostly) but I do think the kids loved walking up to the altar with the barn backdrop and dropping a canned good in the manger, “giving it to the baby Jesus.”
On a deeper level—the Bible LOVES imagery. The infant Jesus, the “Bread of
the Life” in a food trough to feed the world. Luther described the Bible as the manger that holds Jesus, the Word made Flesh (John 1). The church is collectively the Body of Christ (I Corinthians 12), and the hands of that Body are us. We too are weak, dependent on God, just like an infant is dependent on their parents. Christ is among us
now, in the poor in our midst, just like he was inside of Mary, next to Joseph. The Word is also within us, growing inside of us, just like with Mary. He is coming! Alleluia!
Peace,
Pr. Christian