We are theatre lovers. So when my daughter and I had the chance to help with a production of The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, we jumped at the chance. If you haven’t had the fortune to see this play or the movie, you must. As the story goes, the Herdmans, a poor family with no manners and no religious upbringing, end up playing the primary characters in the annual pageant at a small town church.
Rowdy Soul: Imogene Herdman
To the horror of the regular church kids and some judgmental adults, the Herdmans take over with their rowdy ways and their serious lack of biblical context. Adding to the stress of the situation, long-time director Mrs. Armstrong has broken her leg and cannot perform her usual duties in running all things Christmas at the church. Enter Grace, an unsuspecting wife and mother who is volunteered (by other women who don’t want the job) to take Mrs. Armstrong’s place. As rehearsals progress and Grace attempts to keep the chaos to a minimum, everything and everyone seems to be rising up against her earnest efforts.
Grace even takes time to try to explain the Christmas story to the Herdmans, who try their best to get it. But the naysayers abound, and stretching from her own son Charlie, to the gossip ladies, and even the pastor of the church, there is not much support for Grace and her faith that the pageant will be the best Christmas pageant ever.
The play is quite a metaphor for life really. There are always a few people who deem themselves experts, the grand keepers of tradition and knowledge, who find it hard to keep quiet when something major shakes up the scene. These people often have wonderful insight and experience, but they get caught up in “how things have always been done” that they miss any potential growth that drastic even unwanted change can bring.
Judgmental assumptions block out grace and light, not allowing for repentant souls to make something new.
There’s only so much naysayers can say however when negative predictions are turned upside down, when the storm passes by, and when eyes are opened to the beauty of new life and light.
And the Herdmans represent the seekers and travelers, those who have to find that light in their own way. They don’t fit a mold or a model, and all they need is someone who is rogue enough to believe in them. All they need is a little grace, a bit of hope, and a lot of forgiveness along the way.
The conduit of grace often turns a person’s story around, surprising everyone who knew best and assumed the worst.
I have to admit I’ve played the naysayer in my own story too often. I have convinced myself that I was just a bad Herdman unable to experience the grace of forgiveness and live a new life. I have also gotten caught up in the judges around me, leaving me controlled by the confined borders of skewed vision and tired assumptions. It’s a desert there–lifeless and cold–and it is not what God intends.
The truth is, everyone under the banner of God’s love gets to live a life redeemed. My picture may be a messy one, filled with mistakes and turns in the road I should not have taken. But as I come into the end of 2014 I am able to see more clearly that my life is a beautiful tapestry of true grace, of broken pieces that led to deep love, and of the glorious struggle towards an abiding faith.
I may be like Imogene Herdman in the play, the crass unpolished girl who forces her way to be cast in the role of Mary, the mother of Jesus. I certainly identify with her–rough around the edges, swinging baby Jesus by the ankle, pushing people around. But Imogene represents all of us with rowdy souls. And like her, we can discover that when grace makes a way, and we are given the chance to hold redemption in our arms, to experience the best for ourselves, all the naysayers in the world can’t change the ultimate outcome.
Kim Messer 