The Sunday School Christmas program is the best religious experience of the year…
I love the irreverence. The preschoolers running like steers on stage till the few brave parents have corralled them into a pile at the front of the stage. The monotone singer in the kids' choir can't carry a tune but can sure make a lot of noise. It reminds me about how the incarnation was so unpredictable. Psychology tells us that that the human brain has not reached full development until sometime after age 3 or 4 and then in smaller more imperceptible ways the brain keeps one growing and becoming more elastic throughout our lives. We know that the brain of a child often leaves the rest of body lacking. I remember thinking that that Jesus somehow must have been different – you know that he was somehow a fully developed adult in a child's body. But if we actually believed that we would have to significantly change our theology. I can recognize Jesus up there on the stage and it makes me smile.
I love the effort. Kids, parents, teachers work hard to perfect the production - usually a play of some sort. They schedule extra practices and assign parts to as many kids as possible to. On the surface getting every kid involved seems to give each child an equal chance to shine but really it's mostly a chance for added parental anxiety. And inevitably the kids pull it off. There are always some mistakes. Those are the best parts for me. I almost wish you could practice them. I love how redemptive mistakes force the audience to be. Some kid misses a line and the room goes taught with tension. People fidget, they start to squirm but they are forced to considerately wait or compensate for lines mumbled, cues missed, or false starts. I get incredible pleasure in seeing the audience forced to do what we find so hard to most of the time. Redeem the deficiencies of our world. Because you can't fault the kids for their effort…
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