Half a Century of Tradition:
Local Parish Marks 50th Annual Live Nativity, Lighting Up the Holiday Season
BAR HARBOR—The people of Mount Desert Island, like most people in Maine, know long winter months, lack of light, the smell of pines, ghosts, and hope. As 2023 heads to its conclusion and 2024 looms ahead some residents are carrying on holiday traditions that are half a century old and maybe even creating some new ones.
Reverend Rob Benson and the congregation of the United Congregational Church on Mount Desert Street held its fiftieth live nativity scene, which graced the town, Friday night. The live nativity event began in 1973.
“For me it’s just a thrill to be a part of this,” Benson said. “So, so many people all joined in to make it possible.”
Those people included Laurie Riddell, Beth Paradis, and Line Rossignol-Rechholtz, Benson said. Players and onlookers rotated in and out during the night, a practice that also occurred in 1973, meant to help keep the cast from getting too cold.
Last night, about 12-14 onlookers would cycle in and out from the sidewalks and parked cars of Mount Desert Street.
According to Smithsonian Magazine,
“A tableau of sculptures or living beings, the nativity scene (as well as the closely related Adoration of the Magi) traces its origins back some 1,500 years. The tradition has changed over time, taking on new meanings as Christianity itself has evolved. “More striking than single images or paintings,” wrote art historian Rudolf Berliner in the 1940s, “the crèche serves the religious purpose of impressing the imagination of the beholder as if he were witnessing the very nativity.”
The staff and congregation have been spreading hope through acts of service and kindness throughout the year, but on Friday night, for the fiftieth year, the congregation spread light and hope via its living nativity.
“It’s always been understood and presented as a gift to the community,” Benson said of the annual living nativity scene outside the church. Historically, St. Francis of Asissi, and others, placed the scene outside to show that the divine can exist outside of a church’s structure.
More locally and more recently, a December 16, 1973 issue of the Bangor Daily News includes a news brief which reads, “To honor the Christmas season and help put Christ back into the meaning of Christmas, a living nativity will be displayed by the Bar Harbor Congregational Church in their churchyard.” The clip also echoes Benson’s message of the event being a gift to the community.
Bob Chaplin was a member of the church’s first nativity 50 years ago.
“I started out this year’s celebration,” he said last year. His daughter, Susannah, was a toddler back then. “My daughter, Susannah Chaplin Isaacs, participated this year.”
Isaacs and Chaplin were wise-people.
“I haven’t been to all fifty, but I’ve been to several,” Chaplin said. “I had the honor of being in the first. Traditions like this are really important to a community.”
St. Francis of Assisi holds the honor of creating the first recorded living nativity scene in a cave close to Greccio, Italy in 1223. He is said to have been inspired by a trip to Israel and also because he wanted to increase people’s worship of Jesus. His event included several live animals. Typically, the scene has a crib, baby Jesus, Mary (his mother), Joseph (her husband) and sometimes donkeys, oxen, camels, Magi, angels, and shepherds. Year-round nativity scenes became popular outside of Italian churches in the 1300s, and expanded to the exterior of wealthy people’s homes in the mid-1500s.
Sometimes the scene moves up and down a street as performers portraying Mary and Joseph look for shelter and are turned away at one door after another, a sequence which imitates the Biblical story. The nativity scene at the Bar Harbor Congregational Church stays on the church’s property.
“It’s fun and meaningful for folks in the congregation and has often included people from other churches as well. We have two full sets of vintage costumes assembled over many years,” Benson said and added that Norma Spurling is the costume expert.
“For me it’s a time to pause in the midst of an extremely busy and stressful season and just take it all in,” Benson said.
The church is hosting a Community Christmas supper tomorrow, December 17, from 5 to 7; a Longest Night/Blue Christmas service, December 20 (6:30 p.m.), and community caroling on December 21, starting at 5 on the Village Green (meet at the gazebo).
The church’s Christmas Eve services will be at 4 and 7 p.m. both in person and via zoom and are open to all. The link is on the church’s website. BarharborUCC.org
Nice photos!