"NO ROOM"
The Nativity of Our Lord (Christmas Eve)
December 24, 2016
Bethel Evangelical Lutheran Church
Glenshaw, Pennsylvania
TEXT:
. . . she brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling clothes, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.
Luke 2:7 (KJV)
The story is told of a little girl who was helping her mother decorate their home for the Christmas season. Mom had assigned the little girl the task of setting up the family's nativity set on a table. The mother felt that, at age five, her daughter was now responsible enough to be trusted with the delicate figures and the fragile wooden stable. After getting her daughter situated in her duty, Mom returned to the kitchen, where she had been doing some holiday baking. As she was working there she suddenly heard a piercing scream coming from the living room. "What happened?" she asked herself. Had her daughter dropped one of the fragile figures and broken it? Mom immediately ran to the living room to see what the problem was. Nothing was broken. Everything was there, safe and sound. Through her tears, the little girl explained to her mother what was wrong: "There's no room for Baby Jesus!" In her haste to get everything into place, the child had neglected to allow room in the stable for the manger and its precious Contents.
No room--it's an old story, so familiar that it's almost a cliché. I guess things haven't changed all that much in two thousand years, have they? There are many people tonight and tomorrow who are so busy with their celebration of Christmas that they neglect to leave room for Jesus too. Oh, they like to sing about the special Baby born so long ago. They might even go so far as to call Him "Savior" and "Lord." But He has no real place in their Christmas or in their lives. For them, He's just another ornament. Perhaps the little girl in our story is in better shape than they are. At least she knew that something was wrong. She realized that she had a problem and was able to identify it. She was aware of the fact that she had forgotten to leave room for the most important Part the Christmas story, and she was not at all pleased with that realization. Most people today are oblivious to the fact that they aren't leaving room for the Savior. And let's not get so puffed up that we stand in judgment over others, because we too can very easily fall into this sort of thing. We also can get so wrapped up in the now-famous "hustle and bustle" of the Christmas season that before we know it Christmas is here and gone, and we're not quite sure if we really celebrated Christ or not. On this feast of the Nativity of our Lord, let's take a look at some of the ways in which Christ can be shut out of our lives, and let us also look at what our newborn King has done and can do to remedy the situation.
We are failing to make room for Christ, first of all, if our celebration of Christmas doesn't include Him. If we fill up our Christmas preparation and celebration with so much shopping, cooking, inviting, visiting, eating, and partying that we don't have time for Christ, we have shut Him out of our Christmas. Everything fits neatly into place, just like the figures in that little girl's nativity scene, but then when we finally get around to thinking about Jesus, all the time is taken up; there is no room left in our schedule for our Savior. Anyone who allows that to happen is in essence saying that all of these other things are more important to him or her than Jesus is, just as surely as Bethlehem's innkeepers felt that their business was more important than a wandering man and his young wife, about to go into labor, searching for shelter.
The great tragedy in all of this is that if Christ is taken out of our Christmas, then Christmas becomes for us nothing more than a confusing winter festival that has no certain meaning--a time of feeling happy and emotional without really understanding why--a time of being nice, for no apparent reason, to people who we really don't like--a time of feeling at least a little more religious than we do the rest of the year. There's no point in celebrating if we have nothing of any real consequence to celebrate. If Christmas is stripped of its real significance as the incarnation of the One who came into the world to redeem us from sin, why is it worth celebrating at all? The meaningless celebration of a watered-down Christmas without Christ amounts to nothing but emptiness--or, worse yet, hypocrisy.
But it doesn't have to be that way. It doesn't have to be that way because the Child born of Mary has made Christmas infinitely rich with meaning and purpose. "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us" (John 1:14). The God who created and rules heaven and earth and everything in them has, in love, consented to become a Part of His own creation. He has permanently united Himself with our human nature. He has become One of us. During this season many of us have or will exchange gifts and greetings and hospitality to express our love for one another. Some of us might even go so far as to show love for people who we don't even know by giving to some of the countless charities that try to bring some Christmas joy to those who otherwise would have none. But nothing can embody love more than actually taking another's person's place--living life as he or she must live it, in his or her own home, bearing his or her own burdens. This is what God did for us when He took on human flesh in the Person of His Son. He has truly become, as Isaiah the prophet called Him, la-wnmu--God with us.
The God who, in love, entered our world as One of us has given us every reason to rejoice--not only at Christmas but every day of our lives. Because of what He has done for us, we have hope--not just a vague optimism that everything might be okay, but a sure and certain hope, made possible by His perfect life of righteousness, credited to us by faith, and by His innocent suffering and death on the cross to make full and complete atonement for our sin. Call me a Scrooge if you wish, talking about the suffering and death of Christ on the day when we celebrate His birth as an adorable Baby, but the truth of the matter is that the manger of Bethlehem always lies in the shadow of the cross of Calvary. This Child came into the world with one purpose in mind, as the apostle Paul reminds us when he writes: "In Christ God was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them" (2 Corinthians 5:19). This is the true peace on earth and goodwill toward men that the angels sang about over Bethlehem's field.
There's a whole world out there celebrating tonight, just as the whole town of Bethlehem was going about its business on that first Christmas over two thousand years ago. In neither case does anyone seem to be particularly concerned about this Child who was born for you and for me and for everyone else who is in need of forgiveness and salvation. But by God's grace we are concerned about Him--concerned enough to trust in Him alone for forgiveness and salvation--concerned enough to give thanks for His grace and sing His praises--concerned enough to serve Him by serving our neighbors in His name, especially as we share with them the "good tidings of great joy" (Luke 2:) that the God whose level we could never raise ourselves up to has lowered Himself to ours so that we might have everlasting life, hope, and peace in Him.. For this reason and for this reason alone we can truly say, with meaning, to one another and to the world: "Merry Christmas!"
Amen.
May the true Light which enlightens everyone, which has come into the world, shining brightly in the darkness, be your very life. And may the Word become flesh, Jesus Christ Himself, continue to make known to you His redeeming grace and truth now and always. He who calls you is faithful, and He will do it. Amen.