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Authors Jerry B. Jenkins, Kathleen Norris, and Francine Rivers discuss the best Christmas stories not in the Bible.

I was fascinated by angels when I was a child. And my favorite book when I was four was Charles Tazewell's The Littlest Angel, which had been published a year before I was born.

My mother and father had read the story to me countless times, and I pored over the illustrations on my own. For some reason, the tragedy implicit in the story—that a little boy has died—did not bother me that much; I was pleased to think that a child could be at play among the angels in heaven.

I suppose the story would seem hopelessly corny to anyone except a child: As heaven prepares for the birth of Jesus, the only gift the boy can bring is a small box with mementos of his life on earth—a dog's collar, some marbles, and other treasures.

The four-year-old boy had been wreaking havoc among the prim and proper angels of heaven—swinging on the Golden Gates, tumbling through streets of gold, falling off clouds, and perpetually losing his halo. He finally found an understanding angel who sent messengers to retrieve his treasure box from his former home on earth.

The older angels consider the box an improper gift for the Christ child and typical of this child's impiety. The boy begins to agree. But when by accident the box rolls to the foot of Jesus' throne, Jesus chooses it as the best gift of all, and transforms it into the star of Bethlehem.

I now know that this theme is reflected in folk tales throughout the world. One is the medieval story of the juggler who scandalizes church officials by plying his trade in front of a statue of the Virgin Mary.

It's the only gift he can give her. But when he drops a ball, the Virgin herself steps down from her pedestal and hands it to him, silencing the crowd. The gift given in poverty from the heart is sufficient to bless God.

When I was a child, I found The Littlest Angel a reassuring tale.

I also believed in angels, and still do. As an adult, however, I care less about being able to play in heaven than about God's unconditional love for me, as flawed as I am, impieties and all. That seems to me to be the real message of the Nativity of Christ.

The Littlest Angel, for all its sentimentality, is a theological work. Here is one who stands above the angels—a child who has learned the truth of Exodus 23:20: "I am going to send an angel in front of you, to guard you on the way and to bring you to the place that I have prepared" (NRSV).

Copyright © 2010 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Kathleen Norris is a poet and the author of the spiritual narratives The Cloister Walk, Dakota, and, most recently, Acedia and Me. Authors Jerry B. Jenkins and Francine Rivers also contributed to this month's Village Green.

Christianity Today has a special section on Advent and Christmas.

Previous Village Green sections have discussed laws that ban Islamic veils, the Tea Party, Afghanistan, Bible smuggling, creation care, intelligent design, preaching, immigration, Lent, premarital abstinence, aid to foreign nations, technology, and abortion.

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December 2010, Vol. 54, No. 12