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The Story is Center Stage
by the Rev. Linda C. Loving
December 2001
This Christmas finds all of us aching to hear the Christmas story. Many years the story becomes merely a backdrop for our frantic festivities; a means for connecting with dear ones near and far and an excuse for spending too much, eating too much, sleeping too little ... but for Christmas 2001, the story is center stage.
After September's tragedies and terror, we carry a deeper sense of the darkness. We anxiously scan the skies of our souls for the illumination of that Bethlehem star. How does the story go again?
"The people who have walked in darkness have seen a great light" (Isaiah 9:2).
"What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it" (John 1:3b-5).
Advent and Christmas texts from scripture are beautifully and lovingly brought to life in the Service of Nine Lessons and Carols. Those first clear and pure notes of a child's voice singing "Once In Royal David's City" ... we hardly breathe to hear it, sensing the holiness, the goodness-and the telling of the story begins again.
Storyteller Megan McKenna notes: "a scriptural text is not just any story; it is a text that is divinely inspired."
Its power is enhanced, deepened, and accentuated within a community of hearers who believe. The hearers become the context: they live and breathe and feed upon the text, listening to it and cherishing it, hoping to make it flesh and blood, vibrantly alive in their own time and place. The story, the text itself is handled like a Waterford glass, with utmost attentiveness and awareness of its value and worth. It is received as a gift, an irreplaceable gift from a beloved friend, an heirloom passed down from generation to generation. Remembering that we are entrusted with it and that it will be passed on to those who come after us, we treat it with care, so that it will not be damaged, scratched, or shattered. ¹
A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols is such an heirloom. Receive it as a gift, and become the flesh and blood of the story so that, indeed, the light continues to break into the world and the love of God is known by all people.
¹ Megan McKenna and Tony Cowan, "Keepers of the Story," p.48, Orbis Books, Maryknoll, N.Y., 1997
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