During the recent visit of 4FrontTheatre, the world of the theatre was opened up to me in new ways. As a travelling theatre company, this group has to take its own props with them, and essentially has to create its own stage from scratch, never being quite sure beforehand where they will be asked to perform. In the ‘Job and Jingle’ production, this was done through the creation of the castle, a work of art from lightweight materials painted grey which not only bolted onto poles to make a portable castle very reminiscent of mediaeval castles, but also opened up to create the backdrop of a royal court or a castle kitchen and then also closed to provide actors with a working space hidden from view. The castle actually became the ‘backstage’, even when the action in front of the castle was very much visible to the audience, which says a lot for the ingenuity and versatility of the team.
From within the castle, while actors carried on in front of the edifice, others climbed a stepladder to work puppet monks on sticks or to provide other visual aids to supplement the story. They were (mainly!) invisible to the audience, but worked hard out of sight to generate a believable and entertaining mediaeval world.
Revelation 12 is one of the chapters in the Bible where we are privileged to have the backstage, the behind-the-scenes actions of the Bible, unveiled to us. There, we see the Christmas story from a heavenly perspective: the cosmic struggle between good and evil, with the devil personified as a red dragon hurled down to earth from heaven, the birth of Christ and his persecution by the dragon, the ongoing persecution of God’s people, the ultimate triumph of God’s Messiah. (Rev 12:1-17) This is a far cry from our sanitised, cosy, safe understanding of Christmas, but is a reflection of the reality of spiritual warfare and of the truth that all of history really does hinge on a stable door. If the devil could have prevented the birth of the Messiah, if he could have deflected the Saviour from God’s mission (Matt 4:1-11), if he could have distracted Jesus from Calvary, then our salvation would have been scuppered. Praise God, he was defeated and his power overcome!
In a theatre, what goes on backstage may well look unglamorous and prosaic, but this is a necessary part of the wonder of the production. Theatre creates an illusory world, a fantasy world. Revelation 12 shows us, in symbolic imagery, not illusion or fantasy, but reality. The Christmas story is real. It is not just a nativity production made up of cardboard crowns and teatowels for shepherd headdresses. It is the story of God’s love made manifest in human form, and whatever poetic licence we may take with retelling this story, we do well to grasp its fundamental truth and reality. God so loved the world that He sent His only Son to save us. Rejoice!