TUNBRIDGE — A passerby noticed Wednesday morning that four small statues, including a figure of the baby Jesus in a manger, were missing from the Nativity scene outside The Tunbridge Church.

Church officials have not yet reported the theft to police, the Rev. John McClintock said by phone Wednesday afternoon.

“We would like to give whoever did this a grace period to return the items,” he said.

Officials will notify law enforcement if the statues don’t reappear at the church — which located next to the town offices on Route 110 in Tunbridge Village — within a few days.

“I can’t even begin to understand why you would do this in the Christmas season,” Tunbridge Church member and outreach chairwoman Nancy Chapman said by phone Wednesday afternoon.

A Nativity scene — or crèche — is a tableau depicting the biblical story of the birth of Jesus in a manger in Bethlehem. Christians celebrate Jesus’ birth annually on Dec. 25.

The church purchased the four Nativity figures — Mary, Joseph, a single wise man, and the infant Jesus — from Vermont Church Supply in Burlington in 2019. They replaced a set of figures made of a papier-maché-like material that had deteriorated beyond repair, Chapman said.

Two older figures, a shepherd and an angel, adorn the back wall of the Nativity display and were not stolen.

Money donated in memory of longtime church member Arlene Stockwell, who died in 2016, made the purchase possible, Chapman said. She estimated the monetary value of the group of four statues at roughly $1,000.

The figure of Joseph is just over 4-feet tall, and Mary and the wise man are both kneeling, standing about 3-feet high. Each statue weighs between 25 and 30 pounds, and is made of a heavy plastic material, Chapman said.

Neither Chapman nor McClintock had any idea of the motive for the theft.

“It was a really brazen act,” given the size of the statues and the presence of a streetlight adjacent to the Nativity scene, Chapman said.

“We’re all disappointed that this happened,” McClintock said by phone. “It’s very sad.”

This isn’t the first time thieves have struck the church’s Nativity scene. The original infant Jesus was stolen a few years prior to 2019 —Chapman wasn’t sure exactly what year — in a rash of Nativity-scene thefts in Tunbridge and surrounding towns.

“We used a mechanical doll for a few years,” she said.

The recent theft is “an unfortunate reminder of humankind’s capacity for cruelty,” McClintock wrote on the church’s Facebook page Wednesday evening. He added that “we must have forgiveness in our hearts,” and that “light overcomes dark and love always wins.”

The Tunbridge Church is a non-denominational church founded in 1978 by the merger of the town’s Congregational, Methodist and Baptist churches.

“We serve this community and all are welcome,” McClintock said. “We like to let the people of Tunbridge know that this is their church whether they attend or not.”

Christina Dolan can be reached at cdolan@vnews.com or 603-727-3208.