Wise men with a casserole seek baby in a barn at Dandridge church drive-thru nativity

DANDRIDGE - Shepherds lose their sheep; camel traders try to fleece travelers. Wise men carry a casserole as they follow a streetlight star. Caesar is all mighty yet Bethlehem's gossiping about a special baby born in a barn.

Welcome to the annual drive-through nativity at Dandridge's 70-member Mountain View Church where the birth of Jesus is told as half improvisation skit, half Bible story.

This one-night-only outdoor performance is no often-repeated scripted pageant, no soaring-voice cantata in a candle-lit sanctuary. There's no recited scripture, but there's testimony. Most of the telling is light-hearted to comic, but the humor holds a message that can bring visitors to tears. 

A decade of driving to Jesus 

For a decade each December, cars and pickups and mini-vans have lined up to travel the quarter of a mile around the hillside church. Each vehicle stops at eight scenarios that begin with shepherds and end at the manager of a baby doll Jesus.  

The Dandridge church began the drive-through after seeing another church's similar event online. But this free program is uniquely Mountain View's under the multi-tasking guidance of Sallie Stidham, wife of church pastor the Rev. Billy Stidham.

"We wanted to do something for our community, to show our community we cared about them," Sallie Stidham said. "And also to tell them about the story of the first Christmas and to tell them about who Jesus is.

"Some people will never come to church. They will not come to a church service; they will not come to a cantata. They won't come to a Christmas play, but they can drive through this and not have to get out of their car. It's a little less intimidating I guess."

Hot chocolate, wise guys

The unscripted, often ad-libbed story incorporates Biblical figures with characters not  in any gospel. At the Cafe de Bethlehem, costumed workers offer car riders non-scriptural foam cups of hot chocolate with marshmallows. 

This story’s wise men are more not-so-smart wise guys whose gifts to the Christ child include a travel bottle of Frankincense oil and a casserole they may eat if they get hungry on their way. Wise guy/man Jon Coppenger repeatedly points to a streetlight, telling travelers to follow that star to Bethlehem's stable. 

After the first nativity, organizers discovered they needed to explain why their wise men didn't have camels. So they created a pair of wheeler-dealer "Rent a Camel" traders, played this December by Dakota McCarter and Shane Sands. The traders, having already fleeced the wise men, try to make similar deals with visitors.

Caesar's got a salad dressing? 

This year, for two hours on Dec. 6, a steady parade of vehicles rolled through the nativity's eight vignettes. Some people come every year. Others were first-timers, including a group from Illinois who lined up simply because they saw other cars.

This year, as in each year, the story begins at dusk at the bottom of the church hill. Dressed as a weary shepherd, Billy Stidham quietly welcomes each "chariot" of travelers.

Speaking in a style of Elizabethan English, Stidham asks if visitors have seen his wandering sheep. More than one preschooler informs him the animals must be in a barn. He also queries visitors they seek the Christ child, advising them to travel "yonder up the hill."

It’s near that hilltop where mirth meets message. There, Sallie Stidham leads a quartet of women promoting goods and gossiping at a sort-of ancient market. 

Using props like Caesar salad dressing or talking about Caesar's pizza, the women tell every carload that Caesar rules them all. But they say, turning serious, they've heard talk about a baby named Jesus who’s been born in a barn but will be king. 

"People have told us He will save us from our sins, but He's a baby," Sallie Stidham tells Mike and Lisa Barnett as they sit in their white truck. "I don't understand how this all works. Caesar has his own palace. I wonder if this baby has a palace because we hear he was born in a barn.”

Mike Barnett has an answer. "Toward the end, I bet this baby has a palace for all of us," he says.

Joy to the World

For all the quips, each car's journey ends reverently at Jesus' manager. Mary, played by Sarah Pelham, 18, and Joseph, portrayed for the second year by Dakota Massengill, 19, look silently at a slightly worn baby doll Jesus.

Head angel Jessica Whaley leads an angel choir clad in moiré and lace gowns and holding battery-powered candles. As each car slows to see the nativity, the angels sing such songs as "Silent Night," "Joy to the World" and "Hark the Herald Angels Sing.”

"I love it, I've got tears in my eyes," said Karen Earley of Morristown as the choir finishes “Go Tell It on the Mountain.”

An ornament with a serious message

Before each car rolls away from the manger, Mikenna Gann, 16, hands each driver a 4-inch, handmade, red or green round wooden ornament.  “Oh Come Let Us Adore Him” is written on one side.

Attached to each ornament is a card with the words “Jesus came to bring eternal life for all who believe” and listing four scriptures from the New Testament book of Romans. 

That card, Sallie Stidham says, “has the plan of salvation on it. Because when you get to the nativity, it’s serious. There is a purpose for all this comedy — we want everybody to know who Jesus is."

She hopes the message is received.

“They might take that ornament and toss it in their ornament box,” she says. “But at some point… (they) might think about where it came from. And you just hope they would look at that card. Because God has promised that His word doesn’t return empty.

”I take Him at His word that if you give somebody scripture at some point they are going to be confronted with what is their responsibility and what do they need to do with what God has said. And that’s the whole focus and reason we do what we do."