This transcript has been automatically generated, and therefore may not be 100% accurate.

Well, good afternoon, everybody. I am having a great time. I don't know about you. I am hearing things in these carols that I have sung for several years now I've never heard before. Thank you so much.

These are amazing. We're having an amazing time and it's great to be able to be here with you up here in Limfield. My name is Nathan James Hamden Morgenlock or Nate, if that is easier for you to remember. And I'm originally from Stoke on Trent, but I've moved about a bit. And most recently I was living in America.

And then I've just come to move this last summer to Eastbourne, which is about an hour away. I'm sure you've been down there to see the pebbles and the old folk. Okay, it's a great thing. Now, I've got a question to ask you, and I'm very, very pleased there's lots of children here because you're going to be able to help me out as we answer this question. And hopefully your response to the question will not be quite as painful or bring up so many awkward memories as it might do for some of your parents.

The question is this. Have you ever been in a nativity play?

You've been in one? Yeah, I think loads of people, haven't they? Has anyone ever been Mary in the nativity play? Oh, someone got to meet few people. Your life trajectory is.

That's like being cheerleader in high school, being Mary in the nativity play. Anyone been Joseph in the nativity play? Joseph. Joseph's a great role. A big fan of the Joseph role in the nativity play.

He's a bit awkward because your friends come up and go, you like Mary and you're like, no, you're not just being Joseph. Anyone been shepherds? Shepherds is a fantastic role in the nativity play. Dressing gown and a tea towel, it's all you need. It's fantastic, isn't it?

And also they're unnamed and they're not differentiated, like the wise men that we'll get to later. You just get to be part of a group. Great for the introverts who just want to be on the stage just for a bit, but with their friends. Any angels? Anyone been an angel?

Oh, an angel's great, isn't it? What do you get to wear when you're an angel? You get to wear white and you shine. And you don't just get to wear white, you get to wear tinsel. You get to shine with all the glory of tinsel.

Anyone been the angel Gabriel. Because there's not just a group of. You've been the angel Gabriel. Oh, my goodness. Oh, that brings back some happy memories.

But was there some people who were saying, I wanted to be the angel Gabriel and she was the angel Gabriel? Anyone been Herod? Doesn't usually appear, but we'll get to him later on. But has anyone had to be an animal? Has anyone been a donkey or a camel or a.

You've been a donkey? Yeah, I've been a donkey. Lots of. Yeah, the donkeys, the sheep. Sometimes.

You've got some sheep, an oxen, as we just sang, or a camel, maybe. I think personally, my two favourite roles would be the innkeeper. It's a good role. You get a speaking part. You do get to shut the door in someone's face, say, no, can't come in.

But the problem with the innkeeper is you don't get to join in at the end, when they do the tableau, when all the bits of the people forget about the innkeeper, he has to sort of make his way in halfway through and say, sorry. Oh, there's a lot of you in here, aren't there? Now, there's a question I've got, which is, why do we keep on telling this story? Why do we keep on making this tableau? And we do it with children dressed up in dressing gowns and tinsel.

But also, I've been around this church. I've seen three nativity scenes laid out with figures already.

We absolutely love this picture. Now, do you know the reason why we love this picture? The reason we love this picture, even though some people come up again, it's not historically accurate. The wise men weren't there at the same time as the shepherds, and you sort of go, I know, but shut up. You're missing the point.

The point is that this image, or what I want to call the nativity tableau, that's a french word, seeing tableau. This picture you make at the end of a nativity play is actually a picture of reality. It's the most true thing you could see, and it's the thing that explains most about the world we live in. It gives the best account for the reasons why there are all the differences in the world that we have, and it's the thing that holds all those different things together. And, in fact, you've seen the nativity tableau in lots of Disney movies, right?

You remember in Sleeping Beauty? Anyone seen Sleeping Beauty? Okay, at the beginning, it begins with the birth of Aurora, who will later become briar Rose. Sleeping beauty. And there she is.

The princess has been born. The king and the queen are there. And they gather, the people around them. And that's the opening shot, or Bambi. Anyone remember Bambi from years and years ago?

That begins as the creatures of the wood gather round. Thumper, the rabbit and the skunk thing. And they all come together to see the new baby deer sitting with his mother. And the most famous one of all is probably the Lion King. Think about the opening of the lion king, the circle of life.

And we get all these zebras and antelopes. And all these creatures and elephants. And they all gather there at Pride Rock. And there, Rafiki, the priest, will take the newborn Simba. And he'll pick him up.

And Sarabi and Mufasa will look on, and he'll walk up, and he'll hold him there at the end, and he'll hold him up. And then the sun will come through the clouds. And we see this image of a newborn baby. Surrounded by the whole world.

And it makes the most sense of the world that we live in when we see this picture. This is the thing that makes sense of reality. But have you noticed in each of those situations. I don't think it happens in Bambi. But in each of those, there's someone who doesn't turn up or who turns up late.

Or who isn't very happy. Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty. And who is it in the lion king. Who wasn't there at the presentation of Simba Scar? The one who is threatened by this newborn king.

He wants to rule pride Rock. And same as we have here in this nativity tableau. In Matthew, chapter two, we're told about the wise men. The final people to join the nativity tableau. I think they're the best, right?

I think if you could be any role in nativity, you want to be the king who brings the gold. Because you get to bring a gift that people understand. Because what's myrrh and frankincense? And who would give that to a child? And you get to wear a curtain and a paper hat.

So that's pretty cool. You get a speaking role, and you don't have to be in the tableau for too long. Shepherds have been there for ages waiting for you to turn up. So it's the best role. But anyway, when the wise men come, when these kings come, they want to know where this newborn king has been born.

And they go to Herod. But Herod is not going to join in with this tableau. In fact, he's going to be an enemy of this child. In fact, later on in Matthew, chapter two, he is going to order the massacre of all the baby boys under the age of two, so threatened is he to be by this newborn king. So the question you've got to ask when you look at the nativity tableau is, where do I fit in?

What's my place? If we were to do a scratch nativity right now, what role would you take? Because all of life is here. We have all the wealth of the wise men, all the poverty of the shepherds. We have male and female, Mary and Joseph.

We have heaven and earth, angels and animals. We have heavenly bodies, stars, and we have a base little manger.

And they're all held together by this one person in the middle, the Lord Jesus Christ. The baby who makes sense of all the world in its poverty and in its wealth. The baby who makes sense of the difference between heaven and earth, the baby who makes sense of the angels and the animals, because he's not only the baby who comes to rescue us, he's the God who made everything.

That little baby right there in the middle of that nativity tableau, right there at the bottom of the nativity tableau, is the one who makes sense of every single thing you see and hear and feel.

And the question is, where do you relate to that? How do you relate to that? In one sense, we all already do. Our year is run by this baby. Why are we so anxious about what Boris might say over the next four days?

Because this baby's birthday is the most important time for us to be with our loved ones. Why is it so terrible that someone could be alone on this baby's birthday? And it's not just our year, our seasons. They explain the story of this baby who grew up to become a man, who died, who went down into the earth and rose again. He gives us the winter and the spring and the summer, and then we move on.

He's the one who makes sense of the sun rising every morning and new day. He's also the one makes sense of our calendar. Your date of birth is literally telling people how long since his birthday it was till you were born.

And if we think that we have interests and concerns which don't affect this baby, well, let me tell you, we've got that wrong, too. Science and art spring out of the revolution. That this baby causes the desire to test and measure things, to investigate the world as something that might make sense, springs out of the history of this baby's movement.

The art that we enjoy the glorious architecture of ancient buildings like this is because people wanted to celebrate and commemorate and glory in the art that this baby brings.

If we think we have a concern for the poor and the downtrodden, for the margins, this is the baby who taught us to do that. If anyone has caused a movement to reach out to others, it is the Lord Jesus Christ.

The question is not which role would you like to play? The question is, what role are you already playing and how will you keep playing a role in relation to Jesus Christ? One of my favourite parts of this story of the Magi, the account of the Magi coming, is that when they came, verse eleven, going into the house, they saw the child with Mary, his mother, and they fell down and worshipped him then. And this is my favourite bit. Opening their treasures, they brought out gold and frankincense and love.

Where you keep your treasure, what you keep locked away for other people never to see. Will you open this for this child, for this Jesus? Well, the glorious news is that is absolutely the best thing to do. It is to find your place in adoration of Jesus, the creator and sustainer of the universe, who came not just to tell you what to do, but to deal with your deepest, darkest realities. Because he is the one in whom all things hold together.

And maybe, like Simon and Chrissy have just shared with us on their videos this night, this afternoon could be a movement forward for you in orienting your life around Jesus Christ and celebrating the baby who was born. That all things in heaven and on earth and under the earth, the rich, the poor, all nations, Jews and gentiles all together gathered around Jesus Christ, Emmanuel, God with us. Our next song is an invitation to worship him, to adore him. And what I love about this particular version of this song is that it emphasises the fact that you absolutely do not have to have everything together to come to this child. Whether shepherds or wise men or angels or animals, you can come.

And so I'm just going to pray for us and then we're going to sing again.

Oh, dear God, I thank you that every single year we get to see reality as we see all gathered around Christ. Father, I thank you that he is worthy of our praise because he comes to take on our flesh, that he might deal with our sin and raise us to new life. I pray each of us would know that more and more deeply this Christmas time. In his name we pray. Amen.