Why is it that people think that something has to be historically accurate in order to be portrayed dramatically? No, of course it is not history that a star announced Jesus' birth. Stars were used to announce a number of historic births in the Jewish tradition, Isaac and Moses among them. It is not history that a star can wander across the sky so slowly that wise men can keep up with it or that this star can actually stop over wherever the wise men are supposed to dismount. It is not history that Middle Eastern magi will follow a star to the birthplace of a new king of the Jews, who in fact is said to be the son of a carpenter. Neither do angels sing to hillside shepherds in the middle of the night to tell them about the birth of a baby in Bethlehem. Shepherds do not then go to find this child in a crowded village with no clues other than that the babe is wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.
That, however, is not what these narratives are about. The gospel writers knew that they were not writing history, they knew they were creating an interpretive portrait. That is also what you are doing when you present their portrait in a pageant. Why not then open the pageant with the words, "Once upon a time." Would that not signal that this is not history but like all great myths is still profoundly true and significantly important?
Perhaps you might also present a commentary to accompany the pageant. That commentary could then explain the sources on which the gospel writers were drawing for their details and thereby explain the meaning of these symbols. For example scholars know today that Matthew's story of the wise men and the gifts of gold and frankincense come out of Isaiah 60, where kings come to the brightness of God's rising, they come on camels and they bring gold and frankincense. The star in the East is lifted out of the Balaam and Balak story in Numbers 22-24. The manger/crib is a reference to Isaiah 1. The swaddling clothes come out of the Wisdom of Solomon and on and on we could go. A friend of mine who is a priest in the Church of England tried to write a contemporary version of the Christmas story but found it had little appeal to his audience. I do not think people respond to attempts to take the mystery out of an ancient tale. That does not mean, however, that they think the ancient tale is literally true or actually believable.
I made a note of the Bible references in this piece for future study. They develop the theme that the Christmas story is about demonstrating fulfillment of prophecy. Not in the sense that Fundamentalists use, the sense of actual events being foretold and thus confirmed by the Bible, but in the sense of bending or creating story elements to use the Bible prophecy to confirm the identity of Christ as the Messiah. The actual truth of the events in the stable make a proof of the existence of Jesus as someone special. They make Him the physical and actual son of God.
Turning the Christmas Story into a fairy tale eliminates that proof. The story relates desires of men but does not tell of actual, miraculous events that fill those desires. Bishop Spong is assuming that we really know that Jesus isn't the Miraculous Being we portray in the story, but, only a human baby with a real father that died and was completely disowned by the supporters of his son. I think that is a bigger leap than Bishop Spong implies in his piece. I think it is a step toward truth but a real bombshell.
Tags: Bishop Spong, Pageant, Christmas
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