Prepare:  You will need a nativity set with all the pieces!

  Tell them that today we get to hear the Christmas story from the Gospel of John, then read John 1:1-5.  Feel free to make the language a little more “child friendly,” like changing “testify” to “talk about,” or something like that.

  Huh.  That’s a funny Christmas story.  Let’s see here, I brought a Nativity set to help me tell the story, but I’m not sure that any of these pieces are in the story that I just read.  (Take the pieces out of the nativity scene as you mention them.)  I didn’t hear about wise men, or shepherds.  There wasn’t an angel, either.  Mary and Joseph weren’t there.  I didn’t even hear about a baby!  Well, I guess I brought the wrong things to tell the story today . . . wait, let’s read a little further in the story.  (Read John 1:6-14)

Did you hear that?  The Word of God became flesh and lived among us!  That sounds like a baby to me!  Let’s put the baby back then.  When we talk about the Word of God we often think of stories.  Well, before we had so many books people had to remember stories so that they wouldn’t get lost.  And babies need people to remember them so that they can get food and be taken care of and not get lost, so let’s put Mary and Joseph back.

What good is a story if it doesn’t get told?  That’s the best way to learn a story, right?  To hear someone tell it and then tell it back?  Just like the angels told the story with their song!  And who did they tell?  A story needs to be heard, right?  That’s right, they told the shepherds.  So I guess we should put the angel and the shepherds back, too!

Alright, now all the people here know the story, but they all live here.  What this story needs is someone to help spread it around.  I wonder who we could find to come hear the story and then take it with them?  The wise men!  That’s it!  Three people from a far away land who came to see and hear and who will take the story with them to their homes.

Look!  Out Nativity set is complete again!  And you thought that this wasn’t a Christmas story!

  Word of God, teach us the stories of our faith, be always on lips and always burning in our hearts.  Be with as we hear the story again and again, and give us the courage to tell the story again and again.  Amen

  May God’s Word shine a light into your life today and always.

~GB

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