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The First Day of Christmas

Cynthia Briggs Kittredge (@cbkittredge) is the 8th Dean and President of Seminary of the Southwest and professor of New Testament.  Dean Kittredge holds degrees from Williams College and Harvard Divinity School.  

The Christmas pageant was the high point of the year for us as kids growing up in my church. Wordlessly Caesar Augustus unrolled a scroll (a decree). The boy who played Joseph stood a bit too far away from the girl in the role of Mary to make a convincing depiction of her as his partner (espoused wife). Everyone was relieved that the delivery of the first born son and wrapping him in swaddling clothes happened off stage, but the story resumed when Mary, in a large readable gesture and with studied deliberation, placed a bundle into the triangular wooden box at the bottom of the chancel steps (laid him in a manger). Shepherds clad in burlap headed up the aisle carrying crooks. Sheep toddled alongside.

And then came my entrance. My cue was “Lo.” I was surrounded invisibly by the glory of the Lord. The shepherds cowered, covering their eyes with their arms. The Speaking Angel had the most words a girl ever spoke at my church:
“Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.”
I was a shy child, and I kept my deep desire to express myself buried under a serious, studious, and silent exterior. I had learned those lines by heart, the first verses of scripture I’d ever committed to memory. I didn’t know at the time that it was to the King James translators that I owed the irresistible rhythm of those rising and falling cadences.
But when I spoke those words on that Sunday morning to the shepherds, flanked by the multitude of the heavenly host on the top of the steps, and resounding to the entire congregation, I knew within me how urgent it was to bring this message and how very, very good was this good news. I felt the infiltrating mystery, “and this shall be a sign unto you.”
These words I spoke became mine, my perfect voicing of joy, shared with the whole world.

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