Do you know what I mean when I use the term “bathrobe biblical”? I’m talking about the way we dress the kids for the Christmas pageant at church — old bathrobes become robes for Joseph, Grandpa’s cane becomes a shepherd’s crook, and a cigar box gets decorated with gold-painted macaroni so the kings have a treasure to bring.

If you remember cigar boxes, you’re dating yourself. The traces of that deep, pungent smell were every bit as mysterious as frankincense and myrrh. 

These images created in our pageants are so powerful. And whether it is read by a narrator, or acted out in one of those Las Posadas Pageants that are part of Christmas for so many of us, one of the most important plot twists is there was no room in the inn, so Jesus was born in a barn.

That Jesus was born in a barn, or at lea…