Christmas is for the worst people. It’s for the worst of us. There is a new movie called ‘The Best Christmas Pageant Ever’. Its by the creator of ‘The Chosen’, and it’s a beautiful story about this town that has been celebrating a Christmas pageant for 75 years in a row, and it’s their 75th anniversary. And this year, something different happened. There was a group of family, six kids, and they were called the Herdsman, and they were, really, really the worst kids ever. They were the most bullying kids in the neighborhood. They would steal, they would bite, they would fight, they would smoke cigars. Even girls would smoke cigars. They were really bad kids.
But they got this idea that they wanted to be part of this Christmas pageant. And really, they only wanted to be part of it at first because they wanted to make people angry. And so they threatened all the other kids and said, “if you take any of the parts, we’re never going to stop bullying you.”
And so the night of the casting call, all the kids were there, and the families came together. The mother leading it began to ask for volunteers, and she noticed that she wasn’t getting anyone to raise their hand. And so she said, “would anyone like to play Mary?” And the little girl that usually plays her looked down and didn’t raise her hand. And finally, the oldest Herdsman girl raised her hand and said, “who’s Mary?” And she said, “well, Mary is the mother of Jesus.” And the other boy said, well, “who’s Jesus?” And she said, “Jesus is the Savior who was born into the world; and so Mary is going to play his mother.” So, the oldest girl said, “I will be Mary, and he will be Joe.” And they decided that they were going to take over the pageant.
So, we have six kids: Mary and Joseph, the three wise men, and the youngest girl, the worst of all, who would become the angel. And this would turn out to be what it was going to be the worst Christmas pageant ever. The story progresses, and these little kids get involved in these Christmas pagaent. They started to have a curiosity about it. See, they never heard the Christmas story before, so everything was new to them. They couldn’t believe that the King of the World would be born in a stable.
When they found out that the mother of God wrapped him in swaddling clothes and put him in a feeding box, the oldest girl said, “I think you should call child welfare: you wrapped this kid up and put him in a box.” Sometimes we don’t appreciate how raw the Christmas story is. Sometimes, we don’t appreciate how rough it is to figure out, how tough Mary was to go through everything that she did, how strong Joseph had to be.
In the movie, when the oldest girl is walking by, she sees a picture of Mary on the wall and Mary holding baby Jesus; she looks at the image of Mary, and then she sees her reflection, and in her reflection, she sees a dirty-looking girl. She starts to think “I don’t think I could play Mary.” This family was a ragtag family. Their father had left them, and their mother, was always working, so the kids raised themselves.
As the story progresses, they all want to learn about Jesus. They go to the library, and for the first time, they get library cards and begin to research who Jesus is. They check out a Bible and children’s storybooks, and they find out about the wisemen and the shepherds, and all of a sudden, they start to get excited about them. The main character, the sister, says to the siblings at one point, she said. “Do you realize that on Christmas Eve we get to be someone other than who we are. We get to be someone beautiful.” And from that moment on, she wanted to become a new person. She wanted to become beautiful, like Mary.
Then, they began this pageant the evening when it all came together on Christmas Eve. Everything went as normal, according to plans, until Mary and Joseph, the brother and sister, walked out. They were scruffy and grubby, and she had a baby toy, Jesus, in her arms. And instead of carrying Jesus, she just did what she did with all of her siblings. So, she put Jesus over her shoulder, and she burped him like a little kid. But when she placed Jesus into the manger, she looked down at him and she began to cry; and she realized this was her Savior.
We discover that during the play, the word Jesus means salvation. Jesus came to be our Savior. And so Jesus did come for the worst of us, and He also came for the worst parts of us. No part of us is too ugly, sinful, or shameful for Him not to redeem, because He is the Savior. And so, on this Christmas Eve, as we come together in this church, we come together as a community. We come here together like that community gathered to celebrate that nativity scene. We come because we need a savior.
That’s the only way requirement to go to church, is that we need a savior. And so if you’ve been away from the church, or if your parents or family dragged you here to Mass, know that you are welcome here. You’re loved as you are. Because Jesus didn’t come to the worst of us. Salvation is for everyone.
