Column from the Middletown Journal
by Pastor Dave Kepple
December 29, 2001


My wife collects Nativity scenes.

It started out innocently enough a few years ago. But since then her "hobby" has expanded to the point where we now have more than 100 Nativity scenes (or creches) of various types on display in our home. With each Christmas, the number seems to multiply by geometrical progressions.

Last summer, my son, Dan, thought it would be a great idea to get his Mom a Nativity scene for her birthday -- in July. Dan figured it would be a great surprise, since surely no one else would even think of getting her a Christmas item in the middle of the summer. As it turned out, however, I also got her a creche for her birthday. In addition, our daughter, Judy, who lives in Washington, D.C., mailed a number of Nativity gift items in a birthday package. And so it goes.

Janet's affection for the depiction of Christ's birth was a seed planted in her youth. In fact, her most treasured Nativity may well be one she received from her grandma as a child. We still have the box it came in, too, labeled in her little-girl style of printing:

"Janet Nickoson and Grandmother Sims -- our play of Jesus."

I know it gives a special pleasure to Janet now as she looks upon our 2-year-old granddaughter, Emily, playing with her own (unbreakable!) plastic Nativity set by the hearth.

In November, my wife and I took a little vacation trip up to Amish country in northeastern Ohio. I think back on it now as "Operation: Infinite Credit." Based in tiny Berlin, we made a systematic shopping raid of just about every gift shop in Holmes County. Needless to say, we came home with a plethora of exciting new additions to the Nativity collection.

For a while this year, it looked like we were going to be staging a "live nativity," of sorts.

Our daughter-in-law, Dan's wife, Beth, is due to deliver their second child at any time (as I write these words the afternoon of Dec. 24). Now, the days leading up to Christmas are always kind of exciting, one way or another. But it's even more so when your family is anticipating the birth of a baby.

We had a flurry of excitement last Saturday and again on Sunday morning, as Beth started having some contractions. Both times, it turned out to be a false alarm.

Later, I said to my younger son, Scott, wouldn't it be cool if the baby is born on Christmas Day?

Scott said, no, it wouldn't . . . so I asked him why not.

And in his deep voice, he said softly: "It's been done."

Scott's sardonic humor aside, he's got a point.

It has been done.

To which we can all say, thank God, it has been done!

That is the reason so many of us gathered in the glow of the candlelight on Christmas Eve -- to celebrate what already has been done, by God, along with the promise of that which is yet to come.

We celebrate that miraculous moment in history when Almighty God, the Creator of the Universe and Lord of all, became flesh and lived among us as a living, breathing human being.

As is so often the case, a little child can really help us understand what's going on better than any pastor.

While attending a meeting in Dayton last week, I heard about the meaning of Christmas as described by a 6-year-old. I want to pass it along to you because it says it all -- so simple, and yet so complete.

The child said: "Baby Jesus is what God's love became when God turned it into a person."

To my Christian brothers and sisters, and to all who seek the Truth, my prayer is that this new life will come to you during this season of Christmas. For it is in our hearts that the Nativity of Christ comes most fully alive.


* The Rev. Dave Kepple is pastor of Union Chapel United Methodist Church in Madison Twp.