“The Mouse in the Manger” – A Christmas Pageant (2015)
[HYMN #118 – “O Come, All Ye Faithful]
[The narrator comes up to the lectern, with a stuffed toy mouse, if at
all possible.]
Hello, my name is Josie, and I am a mouse. I come from a little
village in Palestine called Bethlehem, and have I ever got a story to
tell!
You may think that your life is a bore at times, but it pales compared
to how mine usually is. Just imagine: living in this old, run down
stable on the outskirts of town. You know, a stable, a manger, where
horses and cattle hang out when it’s too cold to be out in the open.
Usually it’s pretty boring.
In the summer, it is especially boring, because most of the animals
are out in the fields. And the food isn’t that plentiful either, because
hardly anyone is here. So I pretty well have to fend for myself, and
make do with what little I can find. But in the winter: now that’s
different! I have company, animals, and people too. And the people
bring food. Yummy.
But this one winter things were really different and that’s the story I
want to tell. It was late at night, after what had been a pretty ho-hum
day. Everyone who could manage it had already bedded down for
the night. Of course, there were some people, people like innkeepers, and police, and oh yes, shepherds, who had to stay awake
because they were on duty.
[HYMN # 119 – “Silent Night”]
But then, all of a sudden, several people came crowding into my
stable. I really wondered what was going on.
[HYMN # 126 – “Away in a Manger”]
[The Holy Family processes in. Mary sits behind the manger, with
Joseph hovering protectively behind her and slightly off to one side.]
First of all, there were two very weary, very tired people, a young girl
and her somewhat older husband. Mary and Joseph were their
names, I later discovered. They were from Nazareth and had come
to town because of a decree from Caesar Augustus that all adults
were to return to their ancestral homes to be counted for the census.
I could tell that they were very anxious and afraid, for they had been
looking for a place to stay for hours. Nevertheless, they were quite
relieved to have something, anything, by way of a shelter, a warm
place out of the biting cold. But even more, I could see that the
woman was quite pregnant. I wondered how soon the baby would
arrive.
Actually, I didn’t have to wait long before I found out. The husband
had immediately gotten to work trying to scrounge up a basin and
water and clean cloths. (He was doing it all because they hadn’t
been able to find a midwife at this late hour.) And pretty soon, the
baby came, a darling baby boy. And because I was a mouse, and
pretty small, I could be there up close for all of it. However, before I
knew it, there were other people there too.
[HYMN #136 – “While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks”]
[The shepherds process to the front and stand around the Holy
Family]
Yes, some other people arrived, a bunch of weather worn, smelly old
shepherds who’d come to see the baby. One of them actually
brought along a sheep as a gift for the newborn child, and that sheep
let me in on what had happened before they got there.
I guess that the shepherds had been out in the fields, minding their
own business and keeping watch over their flocks, when all of a
sudden something surprising took place. This splendid and rather
off-putting angel showed up and announced the good news that the
Saviour had been born, right here in Bethlehem. And no sooner had
the angel finished than he was accompanied by a whole host of
angels giving praise to God.
[HYMN #138 – “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing”]
So, after such a ‘production’ the shepherds just had to come into
town to see what it was that the angel had told them about. And
before long, the whole town had heard the good news from this
gossipy bunch of shepherds.
[HYMN #123 – “Once in Royal David’s City”]
But that was not all. After the overcrowding, and fuss and bother of
the census was over, Mary and Joseph were able to move out of the
stable into the house next door. But because it was so close by, I
could still keep tabs on what was going on. (You see, I had mouse
cousins that lived there who told me.) So, a while later some even
stranger guests came along to visit the child. They were not at all like
the shepherds, you know, ordinary, down home folks—local folks.
No, these men (three of them) were rich and important and from far
away. They had travelled for months upon months to come and see
the child, and had actually stopped in on route to see Herod the King
and get directions. (Imagine that: grown up men, actually asking
directions!)
[HYMN #160 – “As With Gladness Men of Old”]
[The magi process up, bearing their gifts, and stand or kneel around
the Christ Child]
Pretty big stuff, these guys. And there was nothing plain about their
gifts either. No, it was rich people kind of stuff: gold, as would befit a
king; incense, as was used for worship, and myrrh, used for
embalming bodies after death. What weird gifts for a young child!
But Mary and Joseph seemed to take this entirely in stride. They
seemed to think that there was nothing unusual about it.
As a mouse, I don’t think that anything quite so wonderful had ever
happened to me—or would ever happen to me since then. Because
what I came to realize was that this baby (Jesus was His name), so
tiny and so seemingly unimportant, was actually God Himself and the
King and Creator of the entire universe. Not bad for a measly
manger in a second rate town like Bethlehem, eh. That then, is my
story.
[HYMN #154 – “Joy to the World”]