This past week at Eastbrook, I preached a message entitled “Making Room” as part of our Christmas Eve services. You can find read the preaching manuscript below. Merry Christmas!
When I was a child, one of my favorite things at Christmas was going to my grandparents’ house in central Illinois. After celebrating our own family Christmas with my parents and my brother we would eventually load the car with gifts and our suitcases.
Then, we would travel along Interstate 74 for the 2 ½ hour drive from Rock Island to Bloomington, Illinois, through snow-covered wintry farm fields until we finally arrived at our grandparents’ house.
After lots of hugs and kisses from Grandma and Grandpa and any other relatives who were there, we would usually make our way up the old stairs to the rooms where we would stay. Their house at one time had almost been like a duplex, with living areas on both the first and second floors. This meant that my older brother and I would sleep in a sofa bed in the upstairs living room, complete with memorably bright orange sheets stretched out over a thin mattress through which you could feel the metal frame. But that room holds some of my favorite holiday memories: wrestling with my brother and cousins until my grandmother banged the ceiling in the dining room right below us to tell us to cut it out, playing games with cousins that were so old you couldn’t buy them anymore, and watching tv on an ancient console television that had an ancient version of a remote control that took two hands to hold.
Looking back, it may not have been too much, but the joy came from being welcomed into their space. We always felt like there was room for us, that we belonged, and that we were loved.
One of the most interesting aspects of the Christmas story, which we just heard from Luke 2, is a little phrase that describes the circumstances of Jesus’ birth.
We heard how, because of a Roman census, Joseph and Mary left Nazareth, their town of residence in the north, to travel to their ancestral home in Bethlehem in the south-central part of the territory. It would have been a long journey no matter how they went. And while we don’t know exactly how pregnant Mary was when they departed Nazareth, eventually the time came for the child to be born while they were in the Bethlehem area. Let’s listen to those words again:
“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 guest room available for them.” (Luke 2:6-7)
There was no guest room available for them. I know we may have heard that “there was no room in the inn,” but that is probably not an accurate description of the situation.
It’s not as if Joseph and Mary come across a “no vacancy” sign at the local Bethlehem Holiday Inn Express.
Mary and Joseph came to their ancestral hometown where they likely had many extended relatives. In the culture where they lived it would have been shameful for Joseph and Mary to not be hosted by a relative in the area for their visit, especially with Mary being pregnant. However, because of the census, there were likely many others seeking hospitality from the same relatives, and so, Mary and Joseph were accommodated in the only available room, which was quite likely a room underneath or to the side of the main house near the stalls of the animals, which were often kept indoors for warmth and safety.
It is into this situation, a place of overstressed and limited hospitality, that Jesus is born.
“She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger…” (Luke 2:7a)
This child, later described by the angels as “the Savior…the Messiah, the Lord” (2:11), is laid not in a royal cradle or a fine, handmade bassinet, but in an animal feeding trough. The One who created all things now enters our spaces in the helplessness of human infancy in total dependency.
And also this: “…there was no guest room available for them.” (Luke 2:7b)
Scripture tells us Jesus is the preexistent Son through whom all the wondrous spaces of creation were made (John 1:3). And yet, what does it mean to discover that in His incarnate birth, Jesus faces a situation where there is barely enough room for Him? As one early Christian commentator describes it:
“He found no place, who by His word established heaven and earth.” – Gregory Thaumaturgus[1]
The One who had brought all the very wonders of creation into being—the far-flung mountains and beautiful sunsets, the greenest of valleys and twists of winding rivers—now comes into our space in such delicate smallness.
God Himself enters our space in Jesus of Nazareth.
“But why,” we may ask, “would this be necessary?”
The story of the Bible describes it this way. Human beings, since shortly after our creation and even unto the present time and our present lives, choose ourselves instead of God. And this choice to put ourselves at the center of the story of our lives and our world leads us into darkness. We hide and withdraw from God and find ourselves stuck in cycles of wrong, brokenness, and evil that we cannot seem to set right.
Wrong has infected our world and our lives. The Scripture describes this reality with a word, “sin,” which simply means that we have chosen ourselves over God, distorting our individual lives, community lives, and the world through centering ourselves around the wrong thing.
God enters into a world like that in Jesus, to set us free and bring us home. This is the story of Jesus’ life, where He works wonders and teaches God’s truth. His death, where He bears the weight of all sin, all our wrong, to bring forgiveness and wholeness, what the Bible calls “salvation.” And this is the story of Jesus’ resurrection, telling us He has secured a victorious way for humanity to be brought back to God, opening before us real life and hope for a future.
Jesus enters into our space so that He might bring us fully into God’s space.
And so, here is Jesus in Bethlehem, born in all lowliness, not enough room, laid in cloths in an animal feeding trough, that he might enter from the lowest point of human existence and gather all human life and experience back to God from the lowest to the highest, from the youngest to the oldest.
Jesus enters into our space so that He can bring us fully into God’s space.
He will do this through His life.
He will do this through His death.
He will do this through His resurrection.
As Paul the Apostle describes it, using a different language:
“God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21).
One recent Christian theologian describes this wondrous act of God in Jesus the incarnate Son this way:
“God can indeed, if he chooses, accommodate other persons in his life without distorting that life. God, to state it as boldly as possible, is roomy.” – Robert Jenson[2]
Jesus enters into our space so that He might bring us fully into God’s space.
I’m reminded of my grandparents’ hospitality over the years. They did not offer room because of something I brought to their house other than my very self. It was because of their love that they made room for me.
I’m reminded of several visits I have made to visit ministry partners in the Middle East, and how graciously they always provided a guest room for me at their church. But, when my wife, Kelly, accompanied me on one of my visits they made it clear that the guest room would not be available. No, they said, that would not be good enough. They wanted to have us stay in a guest room in their home.
They made room because they wanted to honor us but also because they wanted time with us. Honor was important. Proximity was important. Love for us was important.
But for Jesus, at His birth, room was scarce and honor was scarce. They ended up in the least appealing quarters of someone’s house. For the One deserving all honor, there was little honor to be found.
If I can say it with my own terms: God makes room for us. God is roomy. And God makes time for us. God is available.
And Jesus comes into our world to change all that. He comes to find what is lost, heal what is broken, forgive what is wrong, and restore what is destroyed. He enters into our world, that cannot even make space for Him, so that He can bring us back into the roominess of God that we have closed off and availability of God that we have blocked off.
Though homeless and without room, Jesus has made a home and space for us in creation where we live. Though homeless and without room, Jesus makes a home for us and room for us in the presence of God by His life, His death by crucifixion, and His resurrection in victory over the enemy we call death.
In fact, later in His earthly life, just before going to the Cross, Jesus talks with His closest friends about what He is doing. They could sense something dramatic was about to happen. There were increased tensions between Jesus and the religious leaders and earthly powers.
So, His friends asked many questions about what was happening, many based in their fears and worries. At one point Jesus responded in this way:
“Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.” (John 14:1-3)
Jesus, the One for whom there was not sufficient space at His birth, has come to prepare space for us in the presence of God. Jesus, the One for whom there was no guest room is making guest rooms for us in the household of God. That is for the future, yes, but it is also for now.
God is roomy, and in this roominess of the life of God, Jesus makes space for us. Jesus holds space for us in the presence of the Father by the love of the Spirit.
A homeless Messiah making homes for us the lost, the broken, the rootless, and wandering.
Here is the wonder: because of Jesus, God always makes room for us. Because of Jesus, God always makes time for us. We are significant to God because of Jesus the Messiah. We were made for this, and it is the very heart of our existence.
Amidst all the joys of time, space, and love enjoyed with others in the present. Amidst all the joyful memories of Christmas times of the past. Amidst the challenges of our life and world, and even our sadness over those not with us at our celebrations.
May we marvel again at God’s wondrous work of welcome to us in these days. May we stand in awe of Jesus who entered into our space so that He might bring us fully into God’s space. May we worship the God who has come to us that we might draw near to Him.
Jesus is born our Messiah. He is the homeless One who makes a home for us. He is the timeless One who makes time for us. He is Immanuel, God with us, that we, too, might be with God.
Let’s pray.
[1] Gregory Thaumaturgus, “Four Homilies,” Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 6 (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2004), 60.
[2] Robert W. Jenson, Systematic Theology, Volume 1: The Triune God (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 226.
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