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So where did the nativity scenes or crèche displays, so prevalent now populating our church and neighborhood lawns first appear?
Tradition has it, that the year before his death, St. Francis of Assisi staged the first nativity scene in 1223. That year, he was visiting the small Italian town of Grecio to celebrate Christmas, when he realized the local Franciscan hermitage (chapel) would be too small to hold the congregation for Midnight Mass. So, he found a special niche near the town square and set up a manger scene: a straw crib, oxen, sheep, donkeys and an image of the infant Jesus. Bearing torches, the townspeople and the friars sang hymns and music resounded throughout the village. Francis was so overcome with emotion, he was unable to utter the name of Jesus, he simply referred to the infant as the Babe of Bethlehem.
Francis did not to allow the “good news of great joy” to be confined to a church building, but was wise to find a creative and instructive way to allow the love of God to be taken into the midst of neighboring homes and streets and shops. He understood both the humanity of Christ who was born into very humble and human circumstances and the magnificence of God who is not aloof or manifest in overwhelming power, but a God made small and vulnerable, inviting us to love as God loves.
That very year, Crusaders were in combat with Muslim armies, vying for control of holy places-including Bethlehem of Judea. And there are still many places on God’s good earth where there is conflict, tension and war.
Yet, St. Francis knew that if we can prepare a place for the Babe of Bethlehem in a chapel, we can also prepare a place for him in the market square and in the places where peace on earth is still but a tenuous hope. Anyplace may be the place where Jesus is born.
And then, most importantly, one more place.
May Christ be born anew in us.
