Lifetime friends and Catholic Saints Francis and Clare lie entombed in their charming hilltop hometown of Assisi, Italy. Saint Clare, dead more than 700 years, lies incorrupt in a glass coffin inside a church built in her honor. Meanwhile Saint Francis lies in a mighty basilica a mile away, a place of worldwide pilgrimage.
Of Francis’ many achievements and adventures for spreading the Gospel over his lifetime, among the most lasting was the creation of a recreated scene of the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem.
Francis staged the first Nativity scene in a cave, using live animals, on Christmas Eve 1223 while visiting the Italian town of Greccio. In English, this scene is known as a créche. In Spanish, a Nativity scene is known as a Belén (Bethlehem) or nacimiento (birth).
Francis’ motive for creating the scene was recorded thusly by a biographer: “I want to do something that will recall the memory of that child who was born in Bethlehem, to see with bodily eyes the inconveniences of his infancy, how he lay in the manger, and how the ox and ass stood by.”
This custom spread rapidly throughout Europe by Franciscans, the largest religious order in the Catholic Church. While the first Nativity scenes featured people and live animals, in the 14th century artisans began carving créches.
Nativity scenes came to the New World starting in the 16th century and subsequent missionary efforts brought them to Africa and Asia. We can thank German immigrants for bringing créches to the United States during our colonial period.
Of course, the site of the original Nativity can be visited in Bethlehem within the Church of the Nativity. Bethlehem is in the West Bank, part of the Palestinian Territories. Modern pilgrims travel from Jerusalem and pass through a gate in the substantial security wall between the two cities to visit the church and other pilgrimage sites.
Saint Francis used the biblical accounts of the Nativity found in the first two chapters of the Gospel of Matthew and the first chapter of the Gospel of Luke to create the first crèche. Throughout Christian history theologians and clerics have written and preached some of the most moving reflections found in Christianity upon the Nativity and the Incarnation of the Son of God into this world.
The Incarnation is the Christian teaching that the Babe of Bethlehem, born of the Virgin Mary, was (and continues to be) the Eternal Son, the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity, who came to the Earth as both True God and True Man for our salvation. As the Letter to the Philippians says, “He emptied Himself and took the form of a slave, being born in the likeness of men.”
The crèche is not only a charming scene for all to enjoy, but it is an opportunity for Christians to ponder the great divine humility that Christmas represents.
Merry Christmas all!
Rev. Michael Hendrickson is the pastor of Saint Mary Church in Gilroy and a native of Morgan Hill.
