Christmas Pageants?

I am not sure how many Christmas Pageants/nativity plays I have witnessed but some things always seem to stand out – Joseph is normally a good 30 plus years older than the 7 year old Virgin Mary (I always got the impression Joseph was older but surely not a paedophile). The angels look like they are queuing for a Spice Girls reunion concert. The kids looked board and the shepherds have tea towels on their heads (I wonder whether the average Pakeha has thought how culturally offensive that is to Maori). And this is the Church telling the world about the incarnation – God made Flesh, is suspect that we largely miss the plot. Its theology inspired by Christmas cards not the bible, and I sincerely hope that we can do better…

The Image with this post is an email card sent by a friend – it's a 'mick take' of my home town (it's called Nativity in Middlesbrough) which has one of the highest crime rates in Britain, but probably speaks more of the need for the Church to incarnate itself and come alive in our culture than a 1000 bad nativity plays.