Each year when we deck our halls for Christmas, we set up many, many nativity scenes. One goes under the tree, many more go on the window ledges in the front hall, others are scattered throughout the building, and of course this one goes outside. We have so many that some years, we don’t even get them all set out.
The nativity scene is celebrating a significant anniversary this year. For Christmas of 1223, St. Francis of Assisi had his brothers set up a manger with hay and two live animals – an ox and an donkey – in a cave in Greccio, Italy. Francis wanted to see and experience for himself in some small way the circumstances of Jesus’ birth, the poverty, the simplicity, the humble setting in which God entered into our world. He also wanted others to have that experience, so he invited the villagers to come gaze upon the scene while he preached about “the babe of Bethlehem”, which St. Bonaventure said was the term Francis used because he was so emotionally overcome that he couldn’t say “Jesus.”
St. Francis’ recreation of that first Christmas night quickly spread across Italy. Soon every church in Italy and even many private homes had its own nativity scene. For many people, it is impossible to imagine Christmas without a nativity scene to behold. But what of the lesson Francis wanted to share with the people?
Are nativity scenes so common that we have lost our appreciation for the poverty, the simplicity, the humility of our God? Are the nativity scenes so serene, so antiseptic, that we fail to appreciate the messiness of the circumstances of that humble birth: the filth and smell of the animals’ shelter, the messy realities of childbirth?
Eight hundred years ago, St. Francis wanted to make faith come alive for the people of his time. Hopefully, the nativity scene is more than just another Christmas decoration, or in the case of a live nativity, just another form of entertainment. If we have lost sight of St. Francis’ message and lesson of eight hundred years ago, perhaps this anniversary will challenge us to renew our awe and wonder of our God who took on flesh and lived in poverty with us, the same awe and wonder of the shepherds and wise men, and the same awe and wonder that left St. Francis so emotionally overcome that he could not speak the name of the Babe of Bethlehem.
For the Babe of Bethlehem, and the gifts of awe and wonder at the poverty, simplicity and humility of our God, we say Deo Gratias!