No room
- Pastor David Hillis
- Dec 25, 2007
“In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) And everyone went to his own town to register.
"So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. 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.” — Luke 2:1-7 (NIV)
“No room in the inn.” It seems almost impossible to imagine, in a world where today pregnancies are monitored with the best in cutting-edge technology, births are oftentimes scheduled, and hospitals are located in every city of any size; each equipped with a maternity ward, drugs and epidurals to help make a little one’s transition to life outside the womb as smooth as possible for the mother and the child.
A couple of weeks ago, when a family in our congregation had their baby born so quickly that they didn’t even make it to the hospital in time. They told me this past week they are working to get a birth certificate from the local fire department, because in the end that night they decided to just stay home and not go into the hospital.
But Moms, how might you feel if you were having a baby, arrived at the hospital ready to give birth…you walk into the E.R. and they look at you and say, “You know what? I’m sorry ma’am, but this is the flu season and I hate to say it…but our beds are all full. Why don’t you take a seat, and we’ll let you know when we might be able to help you out?”
Or Dads, how might you feel if your wife is getting ready to have your baby, and while demanding from the front desk that a private room be given to you both to have the baby, the person in charge there says, “Well, we could let you use the bathroom if you’d like? …. It IS a family bathroom, so it would give you a little bit of privacy? You could lock the door behind you, I could give you a couple of blankets, there’s a sink in there, and hey, when the baby’s born, you could just drop down that baby changing station on the wall, set your baby in there all nice and wrapped up in one of these blankets, and then Mom, you could just sprawl out on the floor and take a nap.”
That sounds a bit far-fetched (well, maybe a little bit…I’ve been in several of the E.R.’s in Phoenix and the East Valley over the years, and it’s not been too far off from that!) But this little story was the best way I could describe a modern-day birth of Jesus.
But you know, if something like this would have happened to a family here in the United States, we’d be outraged wouldn’t we? And as Christians, the words of this text, if we allow them to, can have the same effect. Our Lord, our Savior, the one who actually gave us all life, was born in a dirty, smelly barn, no doubt with a bunch of farm animals around…horses, sheep maybe…and after being born on that dirty barnyard floor, removing the afterbirth and probably wiping the baby clean with their own clothes, they wrapped Him up as best as they could and laid Him…in a feeding trough. It was probably the only thing around that could put Him on to rest other than the dirt floor.
These days, if something like that were to happen, it wouldn’t be any surprise to hear that, 20 years later, that person’s in counseling to “work through their issues from birth”. But what we see in the Gospels is that Jesus never once brings up these events surrounding His birth…His childhood. He doesn’t get angry with the innkeeper who once said he had no room for Jesus…
But who He did get angry, and even sad…heartbroken…about were the ones who kept saying to Him over and over again that they had no room for Him.
We see Him getting angry at the Pharisees and chief priests, even to the point of calling them names, for not making room for Him…or basically, room for God…in their lives. Eventually, they were even able to lead a crowd of people to shout “crucify Him!” … as they had convinced the crowd that none of them need make any room for Him and His life-changing truth in their lives, either.
Toward the end of his time on earth we find him in Luke 13:34-35 (NIV) saying, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! Look, your house is left to you desolate. I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, 'Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.'"
Today, we know many who would say that they have no room for Jesus in their lives, or His teachings. “Many of them are good,” they might say, “but some of these others…some of those demands He makes in order to be His disciple…well, that’s taking it a bit too far.”
I wonder, however, if you might say that these days you don’t really have room for Jesus either? Oh, you may not be as hostile about it…but after all, it is the holiday season, and there is lots to do…I mean, there’s all these get-togethers we’ve got to go to (I don’t want them to think we’re stuck up or too busy for them!), there’s all these freaking decorations to put up (but we’ve gotta do it…you know, for the kids!), and then there’s all of these gifts we have to buy. Now I’m going to do my best to try to squeeze you in…if nothing else, I’ll throw up a few prayers along the way (like when I need a parking space again at the mall for those people I forgot to buy for), but Lord, just for now, would you mind just hanging out here…in the inn?
As we look at this story of Jesus’ birth in Luke 2, we see that the innkeeper showed no hostility whatsoever toward Mary and Joseph. There’s nothing in the story to indicate that the innkeeper withheld any rooms from them; after all, with a census being taken and everyone required to return to their hometowns to be counted, no doubt the inns in towns all over the empire were full. I’m sure he would have made room for Jesus in the inn if he thought he could; he just had more business than he could handle, and didn’t feel he had the time to give the baby and his mother any special attention. He might have even felt a bit better about himself by relegating the family to the stable in the backyard…at least there, they would be in, off the street.
There is an irony in all of this…Jesus was looked for, hoped for, and even prayed for…but He wasn’t expected when He came. All the innkeeper saw was a tired, dusty family, one of dozens…He was so busy that as shepherds came onto his property from out in the fields nearby to worship the baby in his backyard, he either didn’t notice or didn’t pay any real attention to what was really happening.
You know, yesterday I took Isaac to go Christmas shopping at Chandler Mall, and let me tell you, if there were a place I could have lost my religion yesterday, it would have been trying to just find a parking place there. The 4-lane road going around the mall parking lot was a parking lot; I wondered if I were to just shut the car off and leave it there, if anyone would have noticed!
I remember as I held Isaac’s hand tightly walking into and through the mall so that I didn’t lose him in the mass of people there, I never saw anyone who looked happy? Joyful? Peaceful? Pretty much everyone just had these blank stares on their faces, busily scurrying around.
Are we like the innkeeper this Christmas, so busy and preoccupied that we miss the miracle in the manger?
On the Sunday after Christmas (Dec. 30), we will start a four-week series on this very subject of living in the margins. We’ll talk as we start into a new year how we can learn to stop living on the edge financially, in our schedules, and even morally, because God didn’t design us as human beings to continue to live without any margin in our lives.
But in the meantime, let me just close by saying that we must never let our hearts and lives become so crowded that we fail to be part of what God may be doing right in our midst – right in our own backyards, our own homes; right in our own church.
God’s Spirit may be pouring out blessings all around us and over us; but if our lives are too crowded, if our hearts and minds are filled with the things of this world, we won’t have room for Jesus.
Jesus has promised us that if we make room for Him, if we place Him as the Lord of our lives, then He will make room for us. One day He told His disciples: “Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in me. There is more than enough room in my Father’s home. If this were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am.” (John 14:1-3, NLT)
Have you made room for Jesus in your life? If not, He invites you this morning to empty your heart of this world and all of its entanglements. He invites you to say “yes” to Him and allow Him to fill your life and heart.
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