Making Room--December 26, 2022

Making Room--December 26, 2022

"While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. And she gave born to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them..." [Luke 2:6-7]

We made no room for them. We were unwilling, or unable, to give up an inch of space for the child. And yet... he came anyway.

This, I think, is the real wonder of the story of the birth of the Christ. Humanity makes no room for the intrusion of God, but it doesn't stop God from coming among us. Nobody could set aside a private space in the house for Mary to have her baby, so the basement-level garage where they kept the animals at night was the best anyone could do. And yet... God doesn't cancel the plans, or refuse an appearance, or go look to some other city with a more respectable set of accommodations. God comes...anyway. The Christ is born... anyway.

We could get sidetracked chasing down the precise specifics of what kind of place the child was born in, but let's not lose the forest for the trees here. Yes, it is true that there probably wasn't an "inn" because the word Luke uses here that often gets translated "no room in the inn" is really the word for "guest room" like the upper room where an adult Jesus will have his last Passover. And yes, it is also true that 1st-century homes in the hill country of Judea were most likely to have been built with a ground-floor space where the animals were kept at night both for protection and warmth. And, indeed, it seems hard to imagine that if Mary and Joseph were coming to their own family's hometown that no relatives would have taken them in for their stay. So, sure, it's more likely that Mary and Joseph are staying with relatives who have done the best they could to offer at least a semi-private space once the contractions started, and with a whole house full of guests, the best that they could offer would have been the lower-level area where the animals fed at night. But whether it was the shed or the garage or a Motel 6, and whether they came by camel, donkey, or just got dropped off by a bus, when the time finally came, there was no private place available for the child to be born... and yet, the birth happens anyway.

And in a larger sense, this is the whole Christian story: where human beings think they are too busy, or too important, to set aside space for the divine to enter in, God doesn't just give up on us. God isn't stopped, or offended, or upset, that there is no private suite in the fanciest hotel or maternity ward at Bethlehem General. God doesn't get huffy, or self-pitying, about how no one will make any room. And Christ does not stomp off with arms crossed like a petulant child grumbling that no one has made a big enough deal about his arrival. God doesn't feel threatened by our lack of pomp and circumstance. God comes near... anyway.

Most of the time, we don't realize we are pushing God out when we are doing it. You really don't hear villainous shadowy figures saying, "Aha! Here's our nefarious plan--let's keep God out! We'll stop him! We'll tell him there's no room! Take that!" Most of the time, we are simply convinced that we just don't have the time, or the space, and we can't be troubled to make any more room. And most of the time, God's presence into our lives doesn't look very much like what Respectable Religious people are looking for anyway. If you are assuming that God will walk in to the sound of trumpets and organ music while a parade of people in matching robes processes in to clear the way, you will miss the arrival when it turns out God shows up in a poor young couple looking for a quiet corner away from public view where a young mother can nurse her newborn.

The thing is, Christ keeps showing up in all sorts of places we never bothered looking. We didn't expect a manger, but there he is anyway. Our inability to recognize him in our midst doesn't stop him from coming. And our busy-ness with other things does not keep him from entering.

The nativity says something about the relentlessness of God to keep showing up when we are dense and dim-witted and do not recognize who it is that has just been laid in our spare food trough.

To be fair, you and I probably don't intend to ignore or miss the presence of Christ among us. None of us do. We are more likely to overlook the presence of God, not because God is being "kept out" of anywhere (you can't really "keep God out" anyway), but because we do not know what we should have our eyes open for. If we feel like we cannot see God, it is not because someone has taken God "out" of the world in some kind of diabolical conspiracy (evil does not have that kind of power over God, after all), but rather that our vision is inadequate to see the Mystery in the manger, the Christ in the commonplace, and the Almighty in the faces of anybodies.  Martin Luther framed the problem so clearly in his Christmas sermon from 1543, when he said to his congregation: “There are many of you who think to yourselves: ‘If only I had been there. How quick I would have been to help the baby.” Why don’t you do it now? You have Christ in your neighbor. You ought to serve your neighbor, for what you do to your neighbor in need you do to the Lord Christ himself.”  And that's just it--we still don't have very good vision when it comes to recognizing Jesus in order to make room for him. We need someone to heal our vision.  Lucky for us, the one in the manger turns out to have quite a knack for opening eyes...

Today, let us have our eyes open--God comes to us here and now, regardless of our ability to recognize the arrival, and with or without our permission. But it just seems an awful shame to miss because we weren't looking.

So...keep your eyes open today, and your doors as well. The ones from out of town who were just unloaded off a bus seeking a place of their own among us just might be bringing the very presence of God.

Lord Jesus, open our eyes to see you where you are today, and open our eyes and doors to you.