Description:
This is a Youth Advent play, based on a theme of Christmas in the third millenium, complete with music components.
Script:
Mindy:
I just can’t seem to get into Christmas this year…I mean it used to be my favorite time of the year.
Jonathan:
I know what you mean…there was nothing like the excitement and anticipation of Christmas. Life in December seemed so electric when I was little.
Sam:
Yeah, as a kid there was that magic of the season. But nothing about the adult world is magical.
Jonathan:
Christmas bills, the hectic schedule, relationship problems…none of these add up to that joyful season, the peace and serenity of the story I remember as a kid.
Mindy:
I totally agree, especially this year. A couple of months ago life was perfect! I had just gotten that new position, and I was getting to travel all over the world just like I had dreamed about doing! I had finally made it! I was running with the big dogs, I was a mover and a shaker…
But all of that is about done for…how can I get excited about a baby in a manger, and sing cutesy little songs telling the story of a woman who has a “miracle baby” that everyone loves even before its born and who just adores being pregnant? All I have is a baby on the way that is going to ruin my life. There is no “miracle” in my baby, and the father is certainly not God. I am going to lose my job, probably never hear my father speak to me again not to mention the fact that my dating life is certainly walking the plank.
People just don’t get excited about unwed mothers like in that story. And let me tell you, when you find out your pregnant you certainly don’t get any visits from an angel telling you that everything will be all right! Ya know….
Carolers sing “What Child is This?”
Jonathan:
I feel your pain about life not going like it should Mindy. The whole idea that God will just send a dream your way and suddenly all those questions about what to do next in life makes sense seems pretty ridiculous to me. Let’s get real, you can never undo what people think really happens, if they hear it as gossip it must be fact. You make a few mistakes, hang out with the wrong people and next thing you know you are forever known that way.
You go to the grocery, you meet a new girl, you attend a party and all the while people are talking behind your back about the drugs you must be on and the things you must have learned when you “supposedly” were in prison. I mean people assumed that just because I hung out with troublemakers that I was trouble too. Yeah many of my friends spent time in prison or in rehab, but I never did. It did not matter that after High School I stopped hanging out with them, that’s what they believed.
It was so bad that I finally had to move away because people could not forget that stuff. That is why I have such problems with happily ever after stories like the Christmas story. Some dream doesn’t change people’s minds. You don’t get a break by saying that an angel told you that you are innocent, people will just talk about you even more.
Sam:
I hear you on that angel and dream thing. This whole baloney story about some great miraculous things happening to these nobody people just doesn’t have any real life examples. Yeah some person with no job, no teeth and no job occasionally ends up winning the lottery. But God doesn’t come to some minimum-wage earner like me and say “Hey Sam, I know that you aren’t going anywhere in life, and that you keep wondering what your purpose on this planet is, but wonder no longer! See, I have sent these angels to share the message that YOU are going to be the first person to witness my next miracle…”
Geese how hokey is that? I go about my stuff, I do my job, I am nice to people but when do I get some of the benefit? I have a crummy place to live, I can’t find anything I like to do that I am also good at, I have no social life outside of hanging out and drinking coffee with you guys. When do I get to see some of this promise of the newborn king everyone wants to sing about? How has my dull pathetic life been affected by this Christmas event? This is just some silly story about a baby in a manger and some dorky shepherds getting to see this kid because of some angel message.
Carolers singing “Do You See What I See?”
Sam: Hey Angela, you have been pretty quiet, what you dislike about Christmas?
Angela:
I think you guys are looking at the whole Christmas story from the wrong perspective. Yeah life might not be just like we want it to be and sometimes it outright stinks, but when in the story of Christmas was there any mention or promise that life would be perfect? Where did an angel tell Mary or Joseph that their lives would be great from that point on, or promise to us that we would never have any difficult times? The message of the Christmas story is that of hope and promise in the midst of life not perfect trouble-free living. I mean, you got to keep that in mind.
Mindy, I’m sorry that you are looking at your being pregnant as a disaster, but God’s message to Mary was one of Joy and Hope and does relate to you. It was not a promise that you or Mary would get to keep the life you had chosen, but that you both were with child and that baby is a child of God. This very simple announcement was to be a message of Joy and celebration.
Jonathan, do really think that Joseph’s problems just disappeared when he woke up from that dream? The angel came to him with a message of promise to encourage him not give up on his dreams for life. He was to persevere even if others had given up on him. Do you think that his family or neighbors cut him any slack when he said that an angel had come to him in a dream and that he had been told to stick with Mary? The promise in the message was not that life would be easy and unfold without work, but that the process of life would be worth it.
Sam, don’t you see the profundity of the shepherds being the first to learn of the birth? The power of the story is that even someone who was not rich or powerful got to see Jesus first. It was someone like you, a working Joe, a “nobody” as you put it, who was invited. The love of God is not limited to those with fancy cars, beautiful homes, or high profile jobs. Jesus came to earth as a baby for ALL people, especially those people who think that their existence on earth is meaningless and pathetic. For this baby was bringing Joy to the World!
Communion
Angela:
I know you all said that you can’t get into the Christmas spirit this year, but that is because you have not gotten beyond the simple story you learned as a child. The Christmas story is so much more than a smiling Mary and proud Joseph standing with a couple of giddy shepherds at the manger-side. This story is very relevant to the adult world of worries, trials and preoccupations. The realities of our adult world are connected at the deepest levels to the power and meaning of Christ’s birth. We each can find ourselves in the story, as any one of the people we read about. Whether it is as Mary or Joseph, a wiseman or a shepherd, Harod or Elizabeth the story contains a look at our lives today! We can not escape in inclusiveness of the simple birth of a Baby, and it is this very inclusion which brings us together in this season. For it was through Christ’s very birth and later his life’s ministry that we find the power of his death and resurrection.
This story is about when the light of Christ entered the world to fill our lives and change the world forever! And that is why we sing the songs of Christmas and celebrate each year with friends and family, for each time we do we are sharing the light of Christ with the world we live in!
