THE NIGHT OF THE CHILD
Once the photographs of the collection from the museum were finished, I spread them out so that I could see them, and listened to them, if you will, as they took me back to my memories of the night of the Child.
We are told that the tradition of the creche itself goes back to St. Francis of Assisi….
As the story is told, however, Francis did not merely make a creche that one might set out on a table or a shelf. He built one that housed animals and lived in it with them for a time, perhaps a little like the ‘live manger scenes’ one sees in the parking lots of churches around Christmas though it is unlikely that Francis went home to a house in the suburbs each evening after the night’s viewing was done. Our way of commemorating his act, our bit of wood and glass and plaster and straw and clay and paper is pretty tame compared to his. But then we are pretty tame compared to him as well -- a sure sign that we are not prophets, perhaps. Yet each year we pull our creche out of the closet and take it out of the box and set it up in some particular place.
Some of the creches are elaborate, great collections of pieces, enough for all of Bethlehem it seems, with lights in the houses and enough characters in them to tell the whole story. We spread them out over tables, window seats, and shelves.
Some of the creches are the work of children, made in some church school class and brought home with great pride by the makers and kept with even more pride by the parents. Each year when such a creche comes out of the box, the story is told of the day it came home and of our first glimpse of these treasures of cardboard and poster paper, glue and crayon.
Some are the work of artisans whose names we do not know. We found the creche in a shop somewhere, and of all the ones we had seen, this one seemed to be the one meant for us. So we took it home and set it out that year and have never looked for another. We wrap it carefully at the end of the season and bring it out with great affection and anticipation each year. It is worn a little bit here and there now, chipped in a place or two, but it is our own reminder that we have waited through this season before, that the Promise was kept, and that we await its keeping again.
Some of the creches have been in our family for years, bought by a parent or grandparent, one of those who first taught us the story. Now it has worked its way down through the years and through the family until it has found a place on our shelf or our table. And one look at it recalls to us in a moment all those whom we love but no longer see, as the prayer book describes them. We remember Advents past, and Christmases long since gone and half forgotten. We remember the way that he read the Story aloud each year when we were young or the way that she set the table for Christmas Eve dinner. We remember being all gathered up for midnight mass or the way the snow fell that one magical night as we were leaving the church with hosannas in our ears and joy in our hearts. We are grateful that they believed in the Promise and that they taught us to believe in it as well.
And when we will let them, these cherished bits of glass and wood and paper and straw will speak to us over the days of waiting, reminding us of the Promise that has been made and will be kept, if we will let it....
And now it is time once again.
It is time again for traveling each to our own city to be counted and greeted and held for a while, time to sing a hosanna or two around midnight, the one song worth singing when songs are to be sung. It is time to be wakened by angels and to run through the countryside seeking a Child.
It is time for us to leave our flocks and our fields and our farms unattended, while we search for the One Who we have not seen in a while. It is time to follow the star in the East and to bear gifts and perhaps to outwit the king and go home by new paths.
It is time to be still and to listen for the one Voice worth hearing where voices are heard. Let there be light, it once whispered. And they will know Me by My name and I will come to them, it once said. More softly now it says, It is time, it is time once again.
It is time for the Promise once again to be fulfilled in a single night. It is time for the Night of the Child.
Excerpted from The Night of the Child by Robert Benson
(Upper Room Books, copyright 2000, ISBN 083580948)
