If you head southwest down the Via Sacra in Rome’s ancient Forum towards the Colosseum, you will come across a sixth century church, the Basilica of Saint Cosmas and St Damian – easily missable and yet one not to be missed. Originally a Roman Temple dedicated by the Emperor Maxentius at the start of the fourth century AD, this building is now revered for some of the most stunning early Christian mosaics on the planet, with St Peter and St Paul in the centrepiece over the altar, presenting Cosmas and Damian to Christ. It is why most people visit this church. And here it is (Picture 1).  In white, either side of Christ, you can see St Peter and St Paul presenting Damian and Cosmas; and outside them, you can see, named, Theodorus, King of the Ostrogoths, holding some books, as he hands over the library of peace and some of the temple to Pope Felix VI, who is on the other side of the mosaic. And here it all is in context (Picture 2). It does look amazing.

However, if you go to one of the outer rooms, you will also find a remarkable crib.

Now, normally at Christmas time in a Catholic Church, as many of you will know, there will be a small installation of carved figures in the corner of the church, known as a crib. This will depict the birth of Christ, usually simply as a baby in a manger surrounded by Mary and Joseph, a few animals and the three kings coming to pay their respects. It is an iconic scene and very recognisable. Here’s an example of one (Picture 3). It is pretty straightforward. You can see all the characters I have just mentioned, plus a couple of angels.

But the crib at the Basilica of Saint Cosmas and St Damian in Rome was given to the Church in the 1700s by a family from Naples – and I first heard about it myself at Christmas Day Mass a couple of weeks’ ago.  Here it is (Picture 4).  You can see that there is not just a nativity scene, as most of our own cribs show, but a whole scene of everyday life amongst the ruined columns of the ancient forum (Picture 5) – the chestnut man is there, as is the greengrocer, the farmer who picks the grapes and the soldier. It is a crib in the Neapolitan style, designed to show the birth of Christ as an everyday event amongst everyday people, many of whom do not even know it is happening. Some Neapolitan cribs portray a whole mountainside, and it is hard to even pick out any nativity at all. (Picture 6) Can you see it in this one? Yes, there it is, at the very bottom left – but barely a soul notices it – they simply go on with their everyday lives, whatever that might mean in their own contexts. Now, whether you are Christian or not, with hindsight these people stand within a short strike of one of the most momentous events in all of human history, yet they notice nothing.  It is a scene reminiscent of the line from St John Chapter 1 that you hear at carol services each Christmas: “He was in the World, and the World was made by Him, but the World knew Him not”. 

There is a similar theme in a painting by the sixteenth century Dutch painter, Pieter Bruegel, entitled Daedalus and Icarus. You will know the Greek myth. Daedalus is escaping from the labyrinth of King Minos in Crete and makes some wings for himself and his son, Icarus. They are held together by wax and, before they fly, Daedalus urges his son Icarus not to fly too high, as the wax will melt in the sun and he will fall to his death. Icarus, the wayward teenager, whose father knows nothing of course, gets such a buzz out of the wings that he ignores his father’s advice, and soars upwards towards the heavens, before the wax does indeed melt and he does indeed fall to his death. Here is Bruegel’s painting (Picture 7). It is the most poignant of stories, full of youthful exuberance and arrogant fearlessness, leading to an awful tragedy, and yet Bruegel gives only the mildest of hints to it in his painting, choosing to depict the moment that Icarus plunges into the sea. You can just see his legs disappearing below the waves. Meanwhile, a ship sails past unaware, a fisherman carries on fishing, a shepherd stares (ironically) skyward, without a care in the world, and the ploughman in the foreground simply carries on ploughing. 

There is so much that could be said about either one of these scenes – the Bruegel painting or the Neapolitan crib, but one of the key points in both is that we can get so consumed with what we are doing that we do not notice even the most momentous events happening right in front of our very eyes. Small things happen all the time: maybe you are working hard at home for exams and barely even notice that dinner is on the table every night – well, somebody must have cooked it?  Maybe you are so excited about being picked for the match that you don’t even notice that somebody is in tears from being dropped. Or maybe you are so involved in your 18th birthday party chat, that you did not realise how hurtful it was to that person who did not get invited. It is very easy to get wrapped up in yourself and miss things.  And on a much bigger scale, that is exactly what the film of the moment, Don’t Look Up, is trying to tell us all. 

One thing both Bruegel and the Neapolitan crib makers do is force us to think. They open our eyes; they urge us to search, to look twice, to ask questions; they present things differently; and in doing so, they arouse our curiosity. If Bruegel had wanted to show us the Daedalus and Icarus myth, he could have made it very obvious – just a picture of father and son in flight, with the son in trouble and the palace of Minos in the background, would have been fine – (Picture 8) just like this one by Carlo Saraceni in the seventeenth century. But it would not have made us think. If the Neapolitan crib makers had wanted simply to show us a divine birth, they could have simply shown us a baby in a cradle – but it would not have made us think. What they are saying to us is this: if you do not want to get wound up in your own little lives, you are going to have to think. 

Thinking is hard work. Ironically, we probably don’t think about it enough. A number of years ago, I went to a talk about becoming a deputy head. The speaker gave 10 tips for being a successful deputy head.  Tip number 1 was ‘think’. I remember that actually making me think. It still does, in fact, or I would not be mentioning it. Occasionally, I get asked where my assemblies come from. Well, this one stemmed from a Christmas Day sermon two weeks ago that made me think. It still does. Thinking is hard work, and yet anything worth doing probably is. So, let’s commit to it this term. Notice what is going on around you and think about it. Ask questions, verbalise your thoughts, practice oracy, show curiosity, think. Over time, you will be the better for it.

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