Nativity

What is your purpose in displaying the nativity scene?

December’s downy dressing decks the downtown drives.
All white are now the mass of homes, the streets, the trees,
And all are spreading smiles as carols float around
Between the lights and starry skies and through the wreaths.

Yet, in the shopper’s eyes, there lacks a peaceful look
Of joy as plastic cards redeem what one will please.
They clamor for the discounts, guarding what they took
From bodies tightly mashed. To move, it means to squeeze.

But through the sea of swarming shoppers, I can spy
An item out of sight. It’s difficult to see.
A small display, set on a shelf. I wonder, “Why
Would one hide a precious scene of nativity?”

This set debuted in twelve hundred and twenty-three
To draw the world to Jesus, not the gifts and feast.
Such noble venture of Saint Francis of Assisi.
What can I say? He did his best, to say the least.

He made some errors. Wise men, wood shed, food trough too;
That’s what you get when you have never seen Israel.
But we can be more ignorant than him. It’s true
That we forget. It’s meant to make our Christmas real.

So why this scene? Tradition? Uniformity?
For Christmas decoration? The “Christian thing” to do?
Set up a symbol just for putting on a show?
Is this what man has done to God’s nativity?

It seems we have forgot the meaning of this scene:
Great God, infallible, eternal, infinite,
In fallen form of earth’s most wretched, gross being
And not because He had to. For love He chose it.

The universe’s power magnified immense,
The wisdom of uncounted scrolls that none can write,
Transcendent through all space and time in His presence,
All this—in fragile body of a babe tonight.
Christ Jesus—born to live—example to each soul.
Christ Jesus—born to teach—His wisdom meant to share.
Christ Jesus—born to hurt—our suffering to know.
Christ Jesus—born to die—we hung Him! Shameful! Bare!

But death—it was no harm; He simply came alive
And gave a new reason to walk the cursed earth—
To give us strength when, with devilish thoughts, we strive.
The universe was changed with humble, common birth.

A God-man, crucified—that’s why we have this scene:
Humanity so frail combined with deity.
It’s not a meager trinket carolers have seen;
It summons thoughts of Jesus and His ministry.