A couple of Sundays before Christmas last December, I preached on the subject, “O Little Town of Bethlehem.” At one point in the message I chased a proverbial Christmas rabbit trail and reiterated that the wise men would not have been to the manger where Jesus was born. They would have arrived months later. I went on to say that every time I pass a nativity scene in someone’s yard I want to stop and have my kids go move the Magi to the neighbor’s yard to make it a little more Biblical. I even mentioned that those gift-bearing travelers can be seen in nativity scenes around Grace Church and I threatened to fine responsible staff members $500.00 for each wise man I found at a nativity scene.
Well, that did it. In our church office is a very large porcelain nativity set. From then on those wise men started appearing all over the place. Even the baby Jesus came up missing now and again. I’m not exactly sure who started it all, but one afternoon when everyone else was out in the lobby at our employee Christmas luncheon and I was by myself I found those wise men in the middle of the hall going down to the offices. I decided it was time to take this to a whole other level. I checked to make sure no female employee was straggling behind in the office and then I quickly and quietly took the wise men into the ladies restroom in the office area and put one inside each stall, right in front of the commode. Since there are only 2 stalls, I put the third wise man on the sink.
You should have heard the reaction of two of the office ladies (Karen Gromis and Elaine Bendinsky if I remember correctly) when they went into the restroom at the same time and opened the stalls only to find these traveling porcelain pieces. The best part was that they immediately were convinced that it was Andy Brightbill that was responsible so they immediately took these wise men and put them in interesting locations in his office.
Andy and I then took the wise men and set them under the windshield wipers of three different staff member’s cars. From there they ended up on my bookshelves with my many nautical knick knacks. My family found them on the Wednesday evening before Christmas on my front porch at our house. I then enlisted help from Andy Brightbill and Tim Reedy and we took every piece of the nativity down to the school office and placed them in very interesting locations, my favorite being the tallest wise man right in Eric Lewis’ fish tank among his baby sharks. We then took one of the shepherds and placed him on Con Maser’s desk with a note that said, “Help! I’ve lost all of my friends!”
I thought that was the end of this year’s traveling nativity until I realized that at least one piece of our now infamous church nativity scene had gotten a few frequent flier miles this Holiday. I was stunned by this realization on Christmas morning while sitting in my in-laws family room in Pueblo, Colorado. As I investigated all of the goodies that were in my Christmas stocking, I pulled out one item wrapped very, very carefully in newspaper. “Hmmm,” I thought, “This must be fragile.” To my amazement, it was the baby Jesus from our office nativity scene that seemed to appear just about everywhere this holiday season! I wonder where those wise men spent Christmas? Certainly not at the manger!
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