Where Christmas Begins

by William Stephenson1

I was asked to be a substitute Sunday school teacher for a sixth-grade class during the liturgical season of Advent. This meant I would be their teacher for the four Sundays before Christmas. I'm not good at teaching someone else's material, so I prepared for sessions addressing the translating of the Christmas story into the 21st-century language of an urban pre-teen. When the class finished the translation, their pastor asked them to deliver it in front of the congregation on Christmas Eve. This is how they described this 2000-year-old story as if it could happen in Chicago.

The President and Congress sent out a request to all the citizens of the United States to go to the city where they were born and enter their names on the tax list. A man named Jose went from Springfield to Chicago to register for a tax count along with his wife, Maria. She was

very pregnant and as soon as they got into Chicago by thumbing it, she gave birth to her first son.

At this point in the class, we had to talk about the unusual place she did the birthing. How would they translate the hopelessness of a stable and a manger?

And Maria gave birth to her first son in the back of a gas station near the Dollar Store because all of the motels were full up for the holidays and tax registration. There was just no place to stay! After he was born, she dressed him in a cute little jumper suit and laid him in a shopping cart padded with newspapers.

Next comes the supporting characters.

And on that day, there were police keeping watch over the city. Suddenly, the ET's showed up and lit up the sky. The police were filled with fear and put on their bulletproof vests. But the ET's said, "Don't be scared. Tonight we bring great joy and happiness because South Chicago

now has a new resident and you will find him wearing a blue jumper suit and lying in a shopping cart, padded with copies of the Chicago Tribune."

Suddenly, the sky was filled with ET's, singing and yelling, "Glory to God in the highest and peace on earth to those whom God has blessed."

And then the young man they had chosen to be their speaker on Christmas Eve gave the congregation these closing remarks.

Where does the birth of Jesus (hey-sus') take place? Whether it's in the squalor of a smelly manger or in a shopping cart behind an old gas station, in our lives, or in the shame, disappointment and failure in a relationship...You never know where Christmas will happen.

But it will happen again and again. And it will most likely happen where you are really hurting. Where your need is the greatest. Merry Christmas.

I never returned to that church. I wonder if any of those kids became Sunday school teachers.

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A New Interpretation of the birth of Jesus

Where Christmas Begins

by William Stephenson1

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