With the start of Advent, it was a joy to have Rev. Jacqui Horton and Deacon Jen Woodfin bring their incredible collection of nativity sets to Emmanuel Church for us all to appreciate the wonder of the Christmas story. Over twenty years, they have built their collection both separately and together. Then, in the past ten years, the collection has been exhibited in several churches and now comprises of over a hundred sets.
Each set in the collection had its own story to tell. Some were handmade at home, some were gifts, others acquired from travels to all corners of the globe. All in a wide variety of form, from wood to embroidery, from glass to stone, buttons to Lego, and even as far as Jelly Babies to toilet rolls!
It was fascinating to see which details in the traditional representation of the Nativity are present in the Bible story – and which are not! Here are a selection of photos of the collection and what follows is a description of ‘The Real Nativity Scene’, with reference to where you can read about it in the Bible.
THE REAL NATIVITY SCENE
Imagine a cave under a house in which a 1st century family keeps its animals. There is a guest room, but it is already full of people who have come for the Roman census. When yet another distant member of the family (descended from King David who ruled in the 10th century BC I.e. 1000 years before) turns up, the only space left is with the animals. The young couple (wife is a teenager, husband probably older) probably say they don’t mind, after all, they have been sleeping in the open on their 7-10 day journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem (80 miles).
The young woman is heavily pregnant, and, in the night, a quick labour results in the birth of a baby boy. Rough and ready visitors appear who say that they have been visited by angels whilst out in nearby fields with their sheep. They confirm what the couple knew already – that their baby is going to be someone special, that their baby will bring people to God; they have been told in a dream to call the child, Jesus, which means ‘God saves’.
Weeks or months later, magi (men who study the stars) come from the East to visit, bringing gifts of spices and gold. They too say that the baby is special – that a new star in the sky has proclaimed him a King. All this can be read in the Bible from two different writers: