Baby Jesus on the Lam

 

                                                            Baby Jesus missing in Belleville

 “Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.  For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.

                                                   Matthew 7:7-9 NRSVue

As we know, this weekend marks Christmas for hundreds of millions of Orthodox Christians around the world. In many places, though, including churches, the displays and trappings of Christmas were dismantled during the past weeks and stored away for another year. 

Here in Belleville city workers realized the infant Jesus who is part of the Nativity Scene in a park near the water had "gone walkies." The figure is placed in the creche each year on Christmas Eve day, which certainly would have been stormy this year. According to a Belleville Intelligencer article: "One of the workers remarked the last confirmed sighting of the baby Jesus was probably Dec. 29 leaving the city to speculate the ornament was stolen sometime between then and Jan. 2."

This is not the first Ontario community in which the Christ Child has disappeared. In fact, a quick search reveals a number of similar stories through the years. The baby disappears, sometimes to reappear after the public outcry. Don't you wonder who would do this, and why? It is a bizarre form of vandalism and does beg the question about unresolved spiritual issues for the perpetrators. Of all the babies with whom to abscond! 

I served congregations which included living nativity scenes as part of the Christmas season and in the "good old days" we often had a family with a newborn which was transformed into the Holy Family. That even happened in the multi-evening outdoor living nativity when we lived in Bowmanville, where there were some very frosty nights. To be honest, I think Cricket, the donkey and the pooping sheep were bigger draws for small children, but it was lovely. No actual infants were ever kidnapped. 

We live in a society in which it seems people are more inclined to steal Jesus than to search for him, literally or metaphorically. But I'm hoping for a miraculous recovery of the missing statuary. Baby Jesus deserves to be reunited with his mom and one of his dads. The adult Jesus did teach, "seek and you shall find" and he did embody forgiveness.