It was a cowardly deed that even Scrooge would never commit.
Around Dec. 12, someone stole half of a Nativity scene that Holland Road Baptist Church in Danville puts up every year during the Christmas season. The Rev. James Mayes, pastor at the church, says the figures aren’t worth much monetarily, but they hold strong sentimental value.
“It was about 40 years old and the church used it for years and years,” Mayes said Monday.
Holland Road Baptist Church, where Mayes has been a pastor for about 17 years, has about 75 members.
The thieves took the baby Jesus, the manger and one of the lambs, Mayes said. To replace the stolen figures, a church member pieced together a makeshift manger and replaced the baby Jesus with a doll to keep the Nativity scene up. Mayes said the church will decide before next Christmas whether to replace the entire Nativity.
The scene includes a light with a drop cord to illuminate the figures and a timer to turn the lights on and off at given times. The drop cord and timer are probably worth more than the plastic figures, but Mayes hopes the thief or thieves think about what they have done.
“You’d do better to have Jesus in your heart than to have him outside somewhere,” Mayes said of the act.
Mayes said he hasn’t contacted police and doesn’t want anyone to get in trouble over the incident. But hopefully, he said, their conscience will bother them and they may rethink what they have done.
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