Room?

Author: Mark Fenstermacher
December 17, 2021

A friend failed to make a hotel reservation on the first night of his honeymoon. He and his bride were going from central Indiana to central Tennessee. They made stop after stop, and every hotel had nothing.

Finally, at a rest stop, the woman dug around in her luggage, retrieved her toothpaste, toothbrush, soap and a small towel. She went inside the rest stop, came back to the car, and crawled into the back seat where she pulled a blanket around herself. 

“What are you doing?” her husband asked.

“I’m going to sleep back here and you are going to sleep up there,” she said. She closed her eyes. She was done.

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One of the details of the story of Christ’s birth that speaks to me is the remark Luke makes in 1:7: “She gave birth to her first son, wrapped him in cloths and laid him in a manger—there was no room for them to stay in the inn.”

“No room.”

Scholars speculate that Joseph was expecting to find a relative (since Bethlehem was his ancestral home) with a spare guest room.

There is no decent room for them. So Mary and Joseph (and their child) end up either in the basement of a house where the animals feed, or a stable, or perhaps in one of the many caves that could be found in rocky Judea. 

“No room.”

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The detail about there being no room keeps nudging at me. It keeps pestering me and won’t let go of me.

What does it say about a world where people show up on our southern border, or on the coast of Greece, or how we react to the homeless across our country? What will we do when others in our world are looking for a place...a room? There is no easy or quick solution, I know, but the Christmas story refuses to let us shrug at the crisis of homelessness while we close our door/border. (I wonder how often Mary and Joseph told Jesus about the night they were turned away, and I wonder if he thought of that night when he spoke in Matthew 25 about welcoming the stranger.)

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What does this story say to us about our lives that are so full, so scheduled, that we find making room for the Christ troublesome or inconvenient? 

During my devotions a week ago, a part of the morning prayer said, “We offer our lives as home to you and ask for grace and strength to live as your faithful, joyful children always.”

Listen to that line: “We offer our lives as home to you…”

The truth is that if we are to offer our lives as home to God, then we are going to need to get rid of some stuff, some commitments, and/or some attitudes.

What needs to go so there can be room for Christ?

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I find it more than a little ironic that the God who makes room for all shows up in Bethlehem and—figuratively speaking—has one door after another slammed in his face.

We learn something about the human heart, about the human race, in the unwillingness of people in Bethlehem to make room for the young woman and her husband, I think.

We learn even more about God when we see God refusing to give up, refusing to turn away, but being born despite the closed doors and lack of space. God’s love is a persistent, stubborn, seeking love.

I’m thankful we have a God who loves despite closed doors.

I’m thankful we have a God who makes space for us all.

When this kind of God comes knocking on your door, how could you turn him away?

“We offer our lives as home to you…”

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• Join us this Sunday for our “Birthday Party for Jesus” between the 8:45 and 10:45 services.


• Join us this Tuesday, Dec. 21, for a Longest Night Service at 6:00 pm.


• Invite a friend to join you on Christmas Eve at 4:30, 7:30 and/or 11:00 pm.

Blessed to share the Jesus road with you!

In Christ and for Christ,
Mark

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