Luke 2: 17-21, John 1:12, 2 Tm 3:16

Steve Holloway

One Sunday a couple of weeks before Christmas we had to take a family trip to the supermarket. Having just left church, my 3 year old daughter stood at the checkout sweetly singing 'Jesus, Jesus, Jesus' as I packed my bags.

The talkative assistant looked at her, smiled at me and calmly said 'Oh it's lovely, you can always tell when it's the pantomime season!' I have to confess the thought of Jesus and the Magic Lamp amused me - I racked my brains for the times the disciples said "He's behind you" but couldn't.

We can learn some important truths from pantomimes - like cat's shouldn't wear boots, glass slippers are not appropriate footwear for a party, ugly sisters have big feet and an apple a day can send you into a one hundred year nap.

But pantomimes are fantasy. It's obvious that for many, the accounts in the Bible are little more than another fairy tale or pantomime. But for Christians the Bible is to be lived. Yes, Jesus used parables - but the message was life and death.

The Bible says that if we believe we will be saved. The message and truths in the book are not there to entertain, they are there to be believed, to save us and change us.

It's been said that we may be the only Bible someone reads - if that's true then we need to ask "Are we presenting a pantomime or truth?" We must be careful to use language and live lives that are authentic and real - if not, what we portray will resemble little more than a fairy tale and not the life changing Gospel.