Christmas
Abbie, the Littlest Angel



Narrator

Abbie (a voice of a five year old, microphoned, off stage and unseen)

Narrator
I would like to tell you a Christmas story. The title of this Christmas story is “Abbie, The Littlest Angel.” 

This story began a long, long, long time ago, about two thousand years ago.

Abraham was a little boy. Abraham was a little Jewish boy who lived in a small rural village called Bethlehem. Abraham was the youngest of seven children. His older brothers called young Abraham by his nickname, “Abe”.

Abe’s father was a shepherd and his five older brothers were also shepherds. All the boys in that family were shepherds just like the father was.

Abe had one sister and her name was Rachel. Rachel was just a year older than Abe. Of course, Rachel never called her little brother, Abraham nor even Abe. She called him “Abbie.” Yes, Abbie. Abbie rhymes with “maybe.”  “Abbie, Abbie, Abbie” she called her younger brother when the two of them were playing together. 

Oh, how Rachel loved Abbie. The two of them, the youngest two children of the family, not only played together, but often worked together in the shepherd’s fields, taking care of their father’s sheep. Rachel and Abbie were the two youngest shepherds of this whole family of shepherds, and the two of them were inseparable.

One spring, Abbie became very sick. Abbie got an awful disease called leprosy. Leprosy was just awful. It was the worse case of leprosy that anyone had ever seen before. Abbie could not be cured of this awful disease and in a new months, Abbie died and was buried at a cemetery out in the shepherd’s fields.

Abbie’s father and mother were so sad. Abbie was only five years old. “Five years old is was too young to die,” said Mom and Dad. Mom and Dad were so sad and they just cried and cried until there were no more tears left inside their eyes. The five older brothers were also very sad, and they cried too. But little Rachel, she was the saddest of them all. At night, Rachel would cry out from her sleep, “Abbie, Abbie, I love you. Abbie, Abbie, where are you? Abbie, Abbie, I am so lonesome for you.”

Meanwhile, while his family was so sad, little Abbie had gone up to heaven to be with Jesus. Abbie had become an angel. Yes, that’s right, an angel. After Abbie had died, he went straight up to heaven and to the pearly gates. Peter took one look at him and said, “Abbie, you look like angel material.” And so Abbie was assigned to be part of the angel choirs. There were many angels’ choirs in heaven.

Abbie then went to the heavenly city where all the other angels lived. The name of that heavenly city was “Los Angeles,” “The City of Angels.” When Abbie arrived at Los Angeles, he had never seen so many angels. Hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, yes millions of angels. There were millions and billions of angels filling up the whole sky.

These angels all had white wings and were flying around, making big ovals in the sky. Oh, how the angels loved to fly. That is what angels do most of the time up there in heaven…fly. They just fly around. As they are flying around, they do somersaults. They do nosedives. As they come out of nosedives, they do spin moves, like an ice skater. Yes, these angels could really fly.

There were fat angels, and skinny angels, and tall angels and short angels.

The other thing that angels did was to sing. Yes, I said, sing. These angels would sing all the time.

God would come and visit the City of Angeles, Los Angeles. As God entered the city, all the angels would stop their somersaults, stop their nosedives and stop their spin moves and would stand perfectly still and would sing together in perfect unison, “Glooooooooooooria. In Excelsis Deo.” (Pastor sings the Gloria.) God would smile. God was mighty impressed with the sound of these angel choirs.

Well, when all was said and done, Abbie became one of the youngest angels, one of the littlest of the angels. That’s why he was called, “Abbie, the littlest angel.”

Abbie was outfitted with a set of wings, and those were a very small set of wings, designed for a small body of a five year old. When Abbie got the set of his own wings, he had to learn how to fly. Abbie began learning how to do somersaults, how to do nosedives and then how to do spin moves in place. And of course, Abbie needed to learn to sing all the angel songs and especially the favorite of the angel songs, The Gloria.

Well, one day, God came to visit the City of the Angels and as God strolled into that city, all the angels stopped doing their somersaults, stopped their nosedives and stopped their spins and they burst forth with their favorite angel song, “Gloooooooooooooria.” (Pastor sings.)  God was pleased.

When the angels had finished their song, God spoke, “Angels, I have a plan. I am going to travel down to that planet called Earth. It is the only planet in my entire universe that has human beings living on it. I am going down to my little planet Earth and I am going to become a human being. I am going to become a … baby. Yes, a real live baby. Then I am going to grow up into an adult and will tell those people on Earth the truth about me…about God. I am going to teach them about how much I love them and how much I want them to love each other.”

“Now, when I go down to Earth, I want some of you angels to come along. Yes, I want you to make the trip with me. Yes, all the way down to Earth. As I get ready to be born as a baby on the Earth, at that precise moment, I want some of you angels to sing your favorite angel song, The Gloria. I want thousands of angels to sing The Gloria at the very moment that I am born as a baby there on Earth.

So I want to have some try-outs for the choir. I want to take the best choir there to the planet Earth.

Well, everyone wanted to go. I mean, all the angels wanted to be part of the action and sing The Gloria precisely at the moment when God was born as a baby. Abbie wanted to go too. So Abbie raised his hand and shouted, “God, let me try out.”

God said, “OK Abbie. You come up here in front of all the other angels and you sing The Gloria. Abbie’s voice was still a child’s voice. He was only five years old and his voice was very high, the sound of a child. His voice hadn’t changed yet. So Abbie sang The Gloria.

Abbie
Glooooooooooria in Excelsis Deo. (Have a young child about five years old microphoned off-stage and playing the part of Abbie. Abbie sings that one line from The Gloria.)

Narrator
“That’s good, Abbie. Your voice is so good that I also want you to have the speaking part. That is, when we get to Earth and all the angels have sung The Gloria, I want you, Abbie, to speak these words, “People of Earth. Do not be afraid. For I bring you good news of great joy for all people. For to you is born this day a Savior who is Christ the Lord.” That’s the speaking part. Can you learn that speaking part?” And Abbie said, 

Abbie
“Yes Sir. I can, Sir.” (Voice microphoned from off stage)

Narrator
So months passed. The angels rehearsed. It was now December 24^th and all the angels were ready to go. They were all ready to travel all the way down to the planet Earth. 

God said, “Stay together. Don’t get lost among the galaxies. The planet Earth is hard to find. Earth is that green marble, with the colors green and blue blended together. It is the only bluish, green marble in the universe.  It shines like no other place in the whole universe. All the other stars are white, but this is the “one and only” bluish green marble. Stay together now.”

So off the angels flew to find the planet Earth. As they flew through the night, the skies were so pretty. The stars were exquisitely beautiful. For a moment, Abbie stopped and looked at all the billions of stars in all directions. Above him. Below him. Around him. It was all so…so…so … breathtaking. So….so…so awesome. It was like Abbie was in a momentary trance.

Suddenly, Abbie came to his senses. O no, Abbie was lost. Where were all the other angels? He couldn’t see all the other angels. O, he should not have stopped. “O no, what am I to do? I have this special part that God wanted me to speak and now I am lost.”

Abbie started flying as fast as he could fly. Faster and faster and faster. At the blur of angelic speed. And in the far distance, Abbie could see a faint…bluish green marble glowing in the distance. All the other stars were bright white, but there was one bluish green marble that he could see. Abbie was so afraid that he would miss the birth of the baby, so afraid that he would miss the angels’ choir, so afraid that he would miss his speaking part. Abbie was so afraid that he began flying faster and faster and faster to that planet called Earth.

And sure enough, Abbie could hear the angels singing The Gloria, just as God was being born as a baby. He heard the angels singing, “Gloooooooooooia” just as Abbie came flying in at the speed of angelic light, right on time, not a second late. 

The angels were singing and …why….why…why…why, right above the little village of Bethlehem, his own hometown.

Why…why…why…why, the angels were right above the shepherds’ field where he used to live.

Why…why…why…why, right above his five older brothers, his mother and father, and his sister Rachel.

Abbie thought to himself, “There they are. My brothers, my mother and father, my sister Rachel.”

Just then, at that very moment, the angels finished singing their Gloria, and all the shepherds looked up into the heavens just as Abbie began his speech.

Abbie shouted his words with all the joy and enthusiasm that he could muster:

Abbie:
 “People of Earth. Do not be afraid. For I bring you good news of great joy for all people. For to you is born this day a Savior who is Christ the Lord. … Don’t be afraid. Don’t be sad. God is with you.”

Narrator
And Rachel shouted, “Look up, it’s Abbie!!! It’s Abbie!!!” 

And his mother and father looked up. And his five brothers gasped. And they all said, “It looks like Abbie!!!”

Suddenly, all the angels were gone. Suddenly, they all disappeared. Abbie was gone too.

Abbie’s mother and father and five brothers and sister Rachel then went to Bethlehem to see the baby Jesus who had been born, just like they had been told to do. On their way to Bethlehem, they passed the cemetery and grave of little Abbie. It had only been six months since Abbie had died of leprosy. The family was still very sad. They still missed him.

But now…but now…for some miraculous reason…there was new joy in their hearts. There was a new special joy in their hearts on that first Christmas night because they knew for sure that Abbie was part of God’s angel choir. In fact, he was Abbie, the littlest angel. Amen.

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