A Chaotic Night

Hobby Lobby and I have one main thing in common. We get started on Christmas as early as September. Because we believe in order to do Christmas well, you gotta get started early. (Well, and they want to make money.)

This year Heartland Church will launch our 3rd annual Ultimate Christmas Party and I am in the throes of rehearsals. Some would say I am a martyr; some days I agree. Because one of my rehearsals involves 25 kids, ages 7-12; most of them on the younger end. I spend half my rehearsals saying things like, “hey, I’m talking here,” “watch what everyone else is doing,” “try to stay focused,” “hands out of your pants,” - you get the picture. But I love every minute of it.

Our first year I interviewed and recorded kids to hear their telling of the story. Then our staff acted out what they heard the kids say. Such as, baby Jesus was wrapped in…wrapping paper. It was fun and entertaining.

Last year I had this crazy idea to do a musical…in a unique sort of way. I got inspired when I heard the song from Disney’s Zombies, “Ain’t Do Doubt About it.” It was, in my mind, the perfect song for Mary and Joseph.

We're gonna be fine, so fine

Ain't no doubt about it

It's working out right, all right

All I'm thinkin' 'bout is

How everything's gonna be okay

No complications in our way

It's fine, we're fine

Ain't no doubt about it

With a cast of kids, our staff and our worship team, we started with our opening number sung by the mayor of Bethehem. The song? “The Greatest Show.” Followed by the Innkeeper’s, “Working 9 to 5;” the shepherds, “On the Road Again;” the Wisemen, wearing various inflatable animal costumes, “We Three Kings” - the Kirk Franklin’s version, of course. Ending with “Celebrate” by Kool and the Gang. It was beyond my wildest dreams. Our kids, our staff, and our vocalists doing the impossible and bringing the house down.

This year. It’s the Ultimate Christmas Party - the SFX (sound effects) version. I’ve got a SFX “Choir” of 15 kids plus my son, Dugan, his keyboard and a sundry of crazy items that produce various sounds. Add the staff playing the characters of the story and the vocal team becoming a host of angels as a barbershop quartet in full costume plus halos and you get the picture…sorta. It all works in my head, but we won’t find out until we bring all the separate parts together on November 30, 3 days before we perform it for our church’s weekend services.

But I love this story being driven by sound effects. Because as much as the songs and pictures and stories imply, I don’t think it was a silent night. I think it was…well, chaotic. A smelly and noisy barn. A young woman in labor - and if she was anything like the rest of us mothers, she was doing some screaming. Joseph, a man who found himself married to this woman now suddenly doing the absolute unthinkable - helping her give birth. If nothing else, he had to have been mumbling…loudly. And there’s a baby. Yes, it was Jesus, but I’m positive he was “no crying he makes.” But, instead, again if he was like most babies (remember although he was fully God, he was also fully baby), he was doing some screaming. The sky was not quiet. Hundreds of angels were flapping their wings. And the shepherds were undoubtedly talking incessantly the whole way to the stable.

It was a night of sounds and noises. At least, that’s what I think. Maybe because my life, at times, is chaotic and noisy so I believe that the same was true for Jesus and his family. As they learned and we know, nothing goes as planned. Nothing turns out exactly as we hoped. Yet…in the end, somehow, some way, through the appearance of “angels,” the entrance of strangers, the non-stop noises surrounding us, we find ourselves at an unusual place, an unexpected place of comfort and joy.

And it’s there we find our Savior. In the midst of the chaos. It’s most definitely a “taking off your shoes” kind of moment (see last week’s post). It was a Christmas of sounds and noise, all telling the world that Our Savior - Emmanuel - had come.