Who would steal baby Jesus?

An excerpt from my book, Can I Get Baptized in Fruit Punch?

My father-in-law told me a story once of someone who had a plastic nativity scene out in front of their house. One night someone stole the baby Jesus. Now I can understand stealing Santa Claus or maybe even a wise man, but this person had the gall to kidnap baby Jesus as He lay asleep in His manger.

Some time passed and the lady who had Jesus stolen from her gave up hope on finding Jesus. I mean, what do you do? You can’t put up posters around town as though your dog ran away. So this lady continued living her life business as usual.

Something happened with a children’s organization she was volunteering for and suddenly she was in need of a large sum of money really fast. She woke up one morning and found the baby Jesus had been returned. Soon thereafter she ran into more than the exact sum of money that she needed. Now she may have just thought that the two instances were coincidences except for the fact that the people that returned the baby Jesus left a note.

Apparently, the culprit’s car had broken down in front of this person’s house and they stole the baby Jesus. They then decided that the baby Jesus was lucky so they kept it in their house and worshipped it. In fact, the stolen baby Jesus had its own room in the house. Eventually though they started getting little baby Jesus guilty feelings and had to return the baby to its rightful owner. The note said that God told them that even though He was blessing them they wouldn't go to heaven as long as they didn't make the theft right.

As I think of this story I wonder how many people think of Jesus this way. How many people think that Jesus is just some superstitious good luck charm? Like Jesus is a troll doll during the Bingo game of life.