When Dan Fairbanks, pastor at the Village Seventh Day Adventurer Church, checked his congregation’s nativity scene Christmas Eve morning, what he found was the most disturbing image of his life.
In the manger belonging to Baby Jesus, instead of Jesus, he found a six pack of Budweiser, three of them emptied.
“Not only had the thieving bastards stolen poor Baby Jesus, but they left beverages of the devil behind in His place,” said Fairbanks soon after the incident.
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Fairbanks, who has lived in Broken Springs all of his life, called his good friend and police chief Jim Kingston, to report the missing messiah.
“Dan was a mess,” says Kingston. “I’m not pointing fingers, but by the time I got there, all the cans of beer were empty. We immediately put out an APB on the Baby Jesus. I put all my men on it. I gave Dan my word that Jesus would be back in his manger no later than 1200 hours.”
But the Broken Springs Police, assisted by a group of 20 concerned citizens armed with shotguns and bow and arrows, had no idea where to look for a stolen nativity figure, let alone one so small as a little baby.
One officer thought he found God’s son in the Village Easyware store, but it turns out that he only found an exact replica of the nativity figurine. The only way store manager Darren Gent could prove that his Jesus wasn’t the missing Jesus was by pointing to the $24.95 price tag on Jesus’s bum.
“Mr. Gent thought of offering his Jesus to the nativity scene if the original wasn’t recovered, but he donated a plastic Santa instead, since he had a surplus of those and unfortunately he was down to his last Baby Jesus.
But the original Jesus was, in fact, recovered, in a pasture north of town, huddled with a nurturing cow, whom residents have dubbed “Mary Moo Moo.” Initially on the scene, several policemen faced udder confusion on just how the cow ended up with the sacred baby.
The farmer at the residence had no idea how Baby Jesus landed with his cows, but Chief Kingston suspects that He was probably lofted from a car window as the intoxicated thieves drove by. He added that the six pack of Budweiser was being tested for fingerprints, and that the Jesus thieves would not escape justice.
On Christmas morning, the recovered Messiah was returned to the Village SDA Church in an elaborate ceremony that also celebrated His birth. As the choir sang “Joy to the World,” the Baby Jesus was rightfully returned to His manger.
But what’s to prevent the Baby Jesus from being stolen again, many BS residents wondered.
Chief Kingston shook off all doubt. “As long as I’m Police Chief, the Baby Jesus will never be stolen again,” he said.
“How can you be so sure?’ we asked.
The Chief answered, “Because we’ve nailed Him down!”