It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, everywhere we go. It’s that special time of the year when people smile more, give more, and eat more. It’s that time of the year to celebrate the birth of Christ. We have special services, sing special songs and lament about how society is forgetting the real meaning of Christmas. We will read the story of Jesus’ birth in Luke 2 and we will pause at verses 6 and 7 as we read about that unconcerned Innkeeper.
While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn. NIV
What an insensitive innkeeper, we proclaim! Preachers will preach about it, they will pound the pulpit in the coming days and exclaim how could anyone turn away God and cause Him to be born in an animal’s feed trough. Sermons will be preached about making room in your heart for God. We are warned to be careful lest this world and its cares crowd out Jesus in our hearts.
We are told to be on guard lest we lose the real reason for the season.
All this is true; yes we must be on guard lest we forget. We have to make sure in all the celebrating that we don’t lose sight of what Christmas is really all about. Yes, we have to make sure that we have room in our life for Jesus. Yet before we allow some warm glow of self-righteousness to grab our heart and cause us to proclaim that the innkeeper was some egocentric and selfish man whom we are not like, before we thank God we are not like him, we need to really understand what he did. We might find that we are more like Mr. Innkeeper than we think.
Of course we say, “I have room for Jesus in my heart!” He is everything to me we proclaim.
I sacrifice and give, I am trying to touch the lives of those in need, and I have given my gift of service. When Jesus knocks I have opened the door of my heart wide to His will. Really?
Why then am I so convicted about the fact that there are people I can hardly tolerate because of our differences? Why am I so resistant to Jesus moving through someone who does not fit my comfortable idea of Christianity? Why am I more concerned about the wants of people around me than I am about spending a day in His presences or having some valued time getting alone with God to get closer to His will? Why don’t I have time to follow His next step in my life rather than what everyone else wants out of me? Why do I have tons of room for my life and even my Christian service that bring me pats on the back and simple At-A Boy responses but little or no room for a small still voice that might make me look a little foolish to the crowd? Why do I have room for religious responses but no room for Christ-like actions?
Could it be that we are more like Mr. Innkeeper than we think we are?
I wonder if we have lost the real lesson of the innkeeper in all our ribbons and wrappings of our Christian lives. You see the lesson is not that we’re making room for God in our lives among all the other elements and desire we are trying to pull off. It’s not about making room or carving out some amount of time in all our wants and action of our religious lives. It’s not about giving God his marked off day or His gift among all our other gifts. You may ask, “What is it then?”
It’s about recognizing the fact that we have to disappear – our agenda has to be discarded – we have to be the ones who vacate the area in order for Him to be glorified.
The fill-to-capacity inn was not the reason Mary had to retreat to the stable.
The “no vacancy” sign was not the reason why Jesus had to be born in a food trough in a barn that housed animals. The reason that Mary birthed the Christ child in such an inhuman place was because the innkeeper would not give up his room.
It wasn’t because the inn was filled. It was because not one person would give-up so Jesus could step into life. It was because no one was willing to step away from their desire so the Messiah could come where they were. It was because no one was willing to give up so they could have Emmanuel God with us.
What would you give up to have Jesus come to your life?
What are you willing to step out of to let God take over in your life?
What are you willing to change so that you can have God with you, your hope of glory?
You see, that night when Jesus was born, the angels sang, creation moved, life happened while everyone else slept in their own cozy world. But there were people at the inn that needed the angels singing in their life, but it didn’t happen. There were people in the inn that needed God with us; in their family, but it never happened. But while they slept the night away and woke the next morning unchanged or helped, the stable was not the same. The Innkeeper no doubt had needs in his life that only God could touch, but he decided not to give up his room and allowed a miracle to happen somewhere else.
There once was a young boy named David who was a bit mentally challenged and slow to construe the social nuances that swirled about him. David’s parents were financially secure and attended church at a prestigious place of worship and were firmly ensconced in the successful aura that surrounded those who worshiped there.
The Christmas season was approaching and the church decided to re-enact the Christmas story through the eyes of children and advertised the event as their gift to the community. Tryouts were held and parts were assigned. Mary and Joseph were the big deal, of course, but the angel hovering over the stable came in at a close second. Anyone assigned to a speaking part was considered quite the thing. Unspoken hierarchy was quickly put in place.
The big dilemma, of course was David. What to do with Him? He was easily distracted and could barely follow instructions. A speaking part was out of the question. But even playing the part of an angel would be stretching his abilities to the limit. Finally it was decided that he could be a sheep, and an older sheep was assigned the task of nudging him to the proper place in case he forgot what he was supposed to do. Practices went as practices usually go. Frustration, tears, brief moments of assurance that everything would be okay in the end, and resignation that hopefully the audience would realize that these were children.
The big night finally arrived. The children, clothed in their costumes and their innocence, were breath taking. The pre-performance chaos dissolved into brilliance of timeless story - told as only the purity and simplicity of children can tell it. The audience was spelled bound, and the directors were thankful that all was going according to plan. Excellence and smooth execution were uppermost in the minds of all those who had participated in the production, and they were pleased with how the children were responding to the weeks of practice and instructions.
Throughout the performance, David was restless and fidgety. The other sheep were content with lying quietly and watching the play unfold, but David was distracted by everything – the lights, the star, the other sheep. That is until Mary and Joseph reached the inn. The angelic-looking Mary walked slowly, leaning on the arm of the freckle-faced Joseph. She sat on a rock looking dejected as Joseph knocked at the door of the Inn.
The performances were being played in an incredibly convincing way and the emotions of everyone were totally caught up in the moment. David stepped forward as if to go to Mary and stopped when his guardian sheep touched his arm and pulled him back.
The innkeeper opened the door and Joseph asked the question in the best desperate voice a child can have: “Please, Sir. My wife is about to have a baby. She is very tired. Do you have a room for the night?” According to script the innkeeper gruffly replied, “No. We’re all full! The only place you can sleep in my stable.” He slammed the door in Joseph’s face. Dejection was thick in the air as the sad Mary and Joseph turned towards stage right where the stable was located. But not even the quick reflexes of the guardian sheep could stop David when without warning off came his black sheep nose, and he came bounding down the steps on two hind legs, crying brokenly, No, no. Wait. You don’t have to go there. We have room. You can spend the night at my house. You can have my room!
After the performance, some said that the directors should have known better than to let David be in the production in the first place. Yet, others were of the opinion that it was the best Christmas message that had ever been delivered in that church.
There were people that woke up that grand morning in Bethlehem unchanged and life went on just like it had always been because their miracle happened in another place. Can you imagine what the Inn would have been like if Jesus had been born there, in the Innkeepers room?
There will be miracles happen in the coming hours, days and weeks, where will your miracle happen? Can you give Jesus your room?
