This story points us from our unlikely heroes to the even more unlikely, and joyous, good news that Jesus’ birth for us was just as unlikely and unexpected.
If you could hear or read one of your favorite books or stories again but for the first time, what story would you choose? If you could read one of your beloved books with the wonder and delight and awe of that first flip of the page and thrill of wondering what’s next, what story would you pull off the shelf?
I’d probably reach for J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings. Or, I’d follow Lucy Pevensie into the wardrobe in C.S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. But after watching the 2024 cinematic adaption of The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, I’d change my choice from a few of my favorite fantasy stories to the greatest story ever told, the myth became fact. If I had to pick one story to hear again for the very first time, it would be the story of the very first Christmas.
This imagination and brilliance – along with plenty of humor –is woven into Barbara Robinson’s classic book (1972) and the 2024 film adaptation of The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. This story helps us to see the Christmas story through the eyes, ears, and lives of children. But not just any old children. Enter, the Herdmans.
“The Herdmans were absolutely the worst kids in the history of the world. They lied and stole and smoked cigars (even the girls) and talked dirty and hit little kids and cussed their teachers and took the name of the Lord in vain and set fire to Fred Shoemaker’s old broken-down toolhouse.”
The Herdmans are every Sunday School teacher’s worst nightmare. They’re unpolished. Unfiltered. Uncontrollable. Unruly. And yet they’re the unsung heroes of this story and even more, unexpected heralds of the true story of Christmas. Through the cloud of Imogene and Gladys’s cigar smoke and behind their raggedy clothes, the Herdmans help us to hear the Christmas story with that sense of mirth and mystery that happens as you set out into the undiscovered country of a new (or new to you) story.
The Herdmans help us see and hear again the old familiar story of Jesus’ birth with the eyes and ears of child-like faith in the Christ child who is born to save us. This story points us from our unlikely heroes to the even more unlikely, and joyous, good news that Jesus’ birth for us (at least from our point of view) was just as unlikely and unexpected, yet full of God’s unconditional love.
Who could’ve guessed that the Herdman children would be the ones to get the Gospel and the scandalous good news of Christmas? And yet they do. The Best Christmas Pageant Ever is a narrative that brings St. Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians to life.
“But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God (1 Cor. 1:27-28).
To save the lowly and weak and lost and outcast, Jesus becomes the lowly, weak, lost, and outcast. To save sinners, Jesus who had no sin of his own became sin for us. To declare us holy, Jesus became like the Herdmans for us. In the story, Reverend Hopkins understood this as well: “He just reminded everyone that when Jesus said, “Suffer the little children to come unto me,” Jesus meant all the children, including the Herdmans.”
When the Herdmans first hear the Christmas story at the church’s Christmas pageant rehearsal, there’s plenty of humor, and good theology, to go around. The Herdmans are incensed that Herod not only tried to kill Jesus, but seemed to get away with countless murders besides his attempt on Jesus’ life. Imogene was shocked that there was no room in the inn, even for Jesus. And “when they got to the part about swaddling clothes and the manger, Imogene asked, “You mean they tied him up and put him in a feedbox? Where was the Child Welfare?”
But of course, that is the beauty, mystery, and simplicity of the Christmas story. “That was the whole point of Jesus—that he didn't come down on a cloud like something out of 'Amazing Comics,' but that he was born and lived . . . a real person."
Real indeed. A real savior for all of our very real problems of sin and death. It’s even more unexpected than the Herdmans. It all sounds too good to be true. It seems too wild to have happened this way. And yet it’s true. It happened. Jesus was born of a real woman, in a real town called Bethlehem, laid in a real manger as a real and true boy - God in the flesh - bearing our humanity and born to bear our very real sin.
As the story of this unexpected Christmas pageant unfolds, the Herdman children help us hear the Christmas story along with them for the first time again. And in doing so we are filled with wonder and imagination and the seemingly impossible and absurd story that is before us.
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever points hearers and viewers to the greatest story ever: the true story of Christ’s birth to save the outcast, the weak, the lost, lonely, and lowly. “The book says that Jesus came for the rich and poor alike—for the people we like and the people we don't.”
And that’s what makes Christ’s birth the best story ever, no matter how many times you read and reread it. Jesus was born to save us, not at our best, but at our worst. Jesus comes down to rescue not the best of us, but the worst of us. The Herdmans. You. Me. All of us.
This Christmas as we hear again the Christmas story from the Gospel of Luke, the angel visiting Joseph, and the wisemen following the star to Bethlehem, God grant us the joy and wonder of Imogene Herdman, to hear the Christmas story as if we were hearing it for the first time.
God grant us the graciousness and gratitude of Leroy, Ralph, Claude, and Ollie Herdman who considered even a ham to be a holy gift for the Holy One of Israel.
And God grant us the zeal and boldness of Gladys Herdman, to shout the glad tidings of great joy for all to hear the best news in the world: “Hey! Unto you a child is born!”
