FIRST READING Isaiah 9:2–7
2 The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness — on them light has shined. 3 You have multiplied the nation, you have increased its joy; they rejoice before you as with joy at the harvest, as people exult when dividing plunder. 4 For the yoke of their burden, and the bar across their shoulders, the rod of their oppressor, you have broken as on the day of Midian. 5 For all the boots of the tramping warriors and all the garments rolled in blood shall be burned as fuel for the fire. 6 For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. 7 His authority shall grow continually, and there shall be endless peace for the throne of David and his kingdom. He will establish and uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time onward and forevermore. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this.
PSALM Psalm 96
1Sing to the LORD a new song; sing to the LORD, all the earth. 2Sing to the LORD, bless the name of the LORD; proclaim God’s salvation from day to day. 3Declare God’s glory among the nations and God’s wonders among all peoples. 4For great is the LORD and greatly to be praised, more to be feared than all gods. 5As for all the gods of the nations, they are but idols; but you, O LORD, have made the heavens. 6Majesty and magnificence are in your presence; power and splendor are in your sanctuary. 7Ascribe to the LORD, you families of the peoples, ascribe to the LORD honor and power. 8Ascribe to the LORD the honor due the holy name; bring offerings and enter the courts of the LORD. 9Worship the LORD in the beau| ty of holiness; tremble before the LORD, all the earth.
10Tell it out among the nations: “The LORD is king! The one who made the world so firm that it cannot be moved will judge the peoples with equity.” 11Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad; let the sea thunder and all that is in it; let the field be joyful and all that is therein. 12Then shall all the trees of the wood shout for joy at your coming, O LORD, for you come to judge the earth. 13You will judge the world with righteousness and the peoples with your truth.
SECOND READING Titus 2:11–14
11 For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all, 12 training us to renounce impiety and worldly passions, and in the present age to live lives that are self-controlled, upright, and godly, 13 while we wait for the blessed hope and the manifestation of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. 14 He it is who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify for himself a people of his own who are zealous for good deeds.
GOSPEL Luke 2:1–20
In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. 2 This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. 3 All went to their own towns to be registered. 4 Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. 5 He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. 6 While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. 7 And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn. 8 In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. 9 Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10 But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for see — I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: 11 to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. 12 This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.” 13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, 14 “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!” 15 When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.” 16 So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger. 17 When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child; 18 and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. 19 But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. 20 The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.
NO ROOM IN THE INN
Wally was a big seven-year-old, but that wasn’t the only thing that concerned the coordinators of the Christmas play. Wally also was a challenged learner. Because of this everyone wondered what role the teacher would give him in the annual Christmas play. Perhaps he could work the curtain? Yet, to everyone’s surprise, the teacher gave Wally the role of the innkeeper. Wally was, of course, delighted. After all, all he had to learn was one line: “There is no room in the inn.” To the delight of everyone, Wally had his line down in no time. Then came the night for the program.
The parents took their places. Every seat in the auditorium was filled. The children entered singing “Oh come all ye faithful.” The lights dimmed. A hush moved over the audience. The curtain opened on Scene One. Mary and Joseph entered the stage and walked up to the inn. “Please sir, my wife is expecting a child at any time. Could we have a room for the night?” Wally was ready for his line. He had rehearsed it all night. He began, there is…and he hesitated. He started over again. There is. . .and again his mind went completely blank. Everyone in the audience held their breath, then whispered the line in hopes it would help Wally remember. Everyone waited, hoping, but poor Wally just didn’t know what to do. Joseph thought he would improvise and started walking away toward the stable on stage left. Seeing him walking away, Wally in desperation called out: “Look, there’s plenty of room at my house, just come on home with me.” It’s actually a delightful twist on a familiar story. But think about that for a moment. “There’s plenty of room at my house, just come on home with me.”
Over the years the characters in the Christmas story have become clearly defined for us. The issues all seem so clear cut. Herod was a villain and the wise men were heroes. The shepherds too were heroes and the Innkeeper–well, the poor innkeeper has gone down as one of the heavies in the story. In our minds eye, we envision him as a crotchety old man with a night cap on his head, sticking his head out a second story window and angrily shouting: Take the stable and leave me alone. But perhaps the innkeeper has received bad press.
Preachers over the centuries have had a field day with this poor fellow. But was it his fault that the inn was built with twelve rooms instead of thirteen? Was it his fault that Caesar Augustus had issued a decree that the entire world should be taxed? Was it his fault that Mary and Joseph were so late in arriving? In reality the answer to all these questions is no; the innkeeper was simply responding to the situation. But you know something, this simple little statement about there being no room in the Inn becomes a symbol for Luke.
As Luke wrote his gospel, his statement of there being no room, almost becomes a theme. Luke takes this one line, “There is no room in the inn,” and shows us how this phrase was recurrent throughout Jesus’ ministry. The question that Luke leaves for us is–will there ever be any room for Him? For starters, was there any room for Jesus in the economic world.
Luke records that one-day Jesus and the disciples stepped off a boat at Gadara. A mad man, screaming wildly and tearing at himself, suddenly approached them. Jesus walked up to the man and asked his name. “I am legion, for we are many,” came the response. He was right. This poor, tormented man was so confused, pulled in so many different directions, that he was no longer one personality but many. Jesus then commanded the demons to come out of this man and into a nearby herd of swine. The pigs immediately stampeded and ran off a cliff and were killed. The man was healed. But what was the response of the community.
Did the community run to Jesus singing praise God from whom all blessings flow? Did they cry out Praise be to Jesus? Did they build a hospital in the community and name it after the Nazarene? The answer is no; they did none of these things. What they did was to send a committee to Jesus and kindly ask Him to get out of town. You see, they weren’t so concerned about that poor demoniac man. He had been around so many years that he had simply become a part of the landscape. But what really got to them, was the fact that Jesus destroyed a herd of swine to heal him. That was hitting them right where it hurt–in the pocket book. It was quite clear to them that if Jesus stayed around, the local economy would be disrupted. What they wanted was business as usual and not some itinerant miracle worker. So the local delegation asks Jesus to kindly leave.
Exactly how they worded this to Him we don’t know, but I’d like to venture a guess. I suspect that the conversation went something like this: Jesus, our lives were doing quite well before you came into town. We don’t think that we need you, and we know that we don’t want you. So Jesus, do us a favor and go try to save the world in some other place. We have to work too hard to fool around with a do-gooder. You see, there was just no room for Jesus in the economic world. Second, there was no room for Jesus in the legal realm.
According to the religious leaders of Jesus’ day, the law was cut and dried. It had been codified centuries earlier–all the way back to Moses. The law, in their minds, was clear. And I don’t doubt that some of them said that tired old cliché, “They may not be good rules but they’re all that we have.” One of those laws read: Whosoever commits adultery shall be stoned to death. There it was in black and white. It was even one of the Ten Commandments: Thou shalt not commit adultery. They came down harder on the enforcement of this law (at least on women) than any other. But so be it. It was the law. The penalty was death by stoning. There were no loopholes. No plea-bargaining. Thus when the crowd brought to Jesus a woman one day, who had clearly been caught in the act, they were ill-prepared for His response. However, Jesus refused to join their little lynch mob.
Didn’t Jesus know the Torah? Oh yes, He knew it, but He also knew something about grace. And that was higher than the law–even the great Law of Moses. The crowd was astonished to say the least. They dropped their stones and walked away, but you had better believe that they didn’t like it one bit. A person who has had his mind changed against his will, is a person whose mind hasn’t really changed. They didn’t do anything about it right away. They were just biding their time. Jesus had said in effect: people are more important than rules. They didn’t buy that for one minute. To them the law was the law and it was clear that there was simply no place for Jesus in this whole matter. Next, there was no room for Jesus in the realm of the religious order.
Now this may sound strange but it was true. People like Annas and Ciaphas already had all of the high positions that were available. Israel had all the high priests that they needed and then some. Who was this new man on the scene who called himself teacher, rabbi? Where did He go to seminary? Who were His parents? Where does He get His authority? Nowhere is there any hint that the chief priests were accommodating to Him.
The religious establishment didn’t stretch out their arms and welcome Jesus into their clerical profession. In fact, they did everything they could to keep Him out; they weren’t about to adjust their comfortable life styles and position in the community because of the claims of Jesus. But it went far deeper than that. They earnestly thought that He was wrong and it was their duty to oppose Him. They organized themselves and like politics, religion can also create some strange bedfellows. Their plan climaxed when Jesus was hanging on a cross at Calvary. There was just no room for Jesus in the world of the ecclesiastical. Nor was there any room for Jesus in the world of politics.
Oh, there were a good number of people who wanted Him to be King. Some of His disciples became so enthusiastic that they even asked him (prematurely though it was) for positions when He came into power. But Jesus wouldn’t play by the rules. He told them that His Kingdom was not of this world. When He rode into Jerusalem and walked into the temple on Palm Sunday, the crowd was prepared for a coronation ceremony. But Jesus disappointed them once again.
Jesus refused to play the game of politics: I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine. He shunned the smoke filled rooms and spent His time with people who didn’t have their hands on the levers of power in society. Oh, they gave Him a popular mandate all right. They all agreed that He should be crucified. So His earthly crown was exchanged for a crown of thorns. There simply was no room for Jesus in the world of politics. It seems that there simply wasn’t any room for Jesus in first century Palestine.
In the economic, legal, religious, and political realms–wherever Jesus turned, there was no room for Him. What began first in Bethlehem, when the innkeeper turned Him away, was to become a recurrent theme. Now fast forward to us today–to you and to me. Do we have room for Jesus in our lives? When the innkeeper was presented with this unexpected situation that night, he faced what I call our universal dilemma. At that point he became every person in this world. Every person is asked: Do you have room for the Messiah?
The fact is that the Messiah comes knocking at the door of our hearts many times in life, in various ways, through various people, in various events. Some of you may say, I am not a preacher and I am not a theologian. How am I supposed to recognize these times? And that’s precisely the point. We’re given no more preparation for revelation than the innkeeper that night. He was just an ordinary person like you and me. He could have said: If I had only known that this was the Messiah I would have gladly opened the door. But if he had known that, he would have responded out of awe, fear, or courtesy not out of compassion. So the Messiah comes to us just as He came to the Bethlehem innkeeper. Not in the form of a King with His entire splendor, but in the form of people in need–like Mary and Joseph. And whether or not we receive Christ depends on how we respond to these people.
The innkeeper claimed that he had no room. Isn’t the crowded inn a rather appropriate symbol of our lives? Our lives have become so cluttered, not with important things but with things that don’t necessarily amount to a hill of beans, that there’s just no time, no energy, no money, no room left over. There’s just no room in our lives for the Messiah. And invariably, just as in Bethlehem, the Messiah comes to us when we so often least expect him.
You’ll notice that Mary and Joseph didn’t make their appearance at the beginning of the rush season but late in the night when the poor innkeeper was tired and irritable after a hard day’s work. Then comes the knock on the door…the unexpected knock of destiny. This is why the advent message to us is to watch and wait.
We’re to keep our minds and our hearts open for His coming. For the hour approaches when the Messiah will come again to you and to me. And like the Bethlehem innkeeper, we will be forced to make a decision. Will our lives be so cluttered with incidentals that there will be no room for God? Or will we open the door and gladly welcome Him in.
To the innkeeper, the knock that came that night was just another of a long series of bothersome interruptions. That’s how some respond to God in their life. Yes. Take the stable! Do anything; just leave me alone. Jesus said, “Listen! I am standing at the door, knocking; if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to you and eat with you, and you with me.” (Rev. 3:20) Jesus knocks at the door of every person. The question is–will we be like Wally and invite Him in or will we be the innkeeper? Is there any room in our life to let Jesus in?
Amen