Luke 2:1-7
You know, there’s a single line in that previous reading that sums up the context of the gospel just perfectly for me. It’s a surprising line. I don’t think you’d guess it. But for me it just does it. You want to know what it is?
“And there was no room for them in the inn”
I told you it was surprising.
And there was no room for him in the inn…
You see, the truth is, for roughly 313 days in a calendar year, taking out Sundays, we usually don’t make enough space for God. And, like the innkeeper of old, we shake our heads no, and cross our arms, and leave no place for Christ to enter in.
Instead, we busy ourselves with everything else; and especially in this season of lights, we fill our surroundings, and even our homes, with as much artificial lightness as possible, rather than the true light of him who has come to lighten all of our burdens and all of our lives.
And yet, my friends, and yet… even though we do and have done that, day in and day out, year over year, God chooses us all the same.
God could have said… no room in the inn?? Really? No room tonight, even for my son and his family!? Really?? Well, then forget you. Forget you! Enjoy your boxes and your artificial trees, and that funny looking guy in the red suit. Enjoy them all but not me, for you made your choice… Yes, my friends, God could have said that…
But you know what? God doesn’t… and that’s not how the story goes.
For Jesus is born of Mary all the same, and though in a manger outside, he comes that night even when there was no room in the inn.
For you see, God will always find a way in.
Even when the night is dark. Even when our lives are messy. Even when it’s as humbling and as humiliating as it gets, God will find a way…for even on a pile of hay out in some barn away from the inn, the dear Christ child entered in
And this, my friends, this is the good news. The story of our gospel. The story of this season. The story of this night.
That even as the days grew longer and darker, that even as the world around us has grown sicker and scarier, we are told that a light will come…that even in a pile of rubble, amidst craters and bomb shells in a land called holy, amidst unspeakable tragedy and loss, fleeing families and destroyed lives, even there, where he was from, we pray and believe, that a light will one day come again… we pray, please Lord, let it come…
For even in our mean estate, in our dark foulness… even when we’ve drawn the blinds shut, and thrown up no vacancy signs, we are told that God will knock on our door, and in grace, peace, and humility, God will enter in.
And so, tonight we celebrate that God knocked on our door. And that through it, Christ walked in. Such that even though we still wait for his final return, we celebrate yet that he was already born…and, that the gifts he brought with him were not just some old frankincense, gold and myrrh, but that of everlasting peace, and that of boundless love, so that we all might hope and believe that through him all chains might break, and all oppression might cease.
So let the angels in your heart sing tonight, my friends, for light and life to all he brings…. For today, in the city of David, whether we leave the light on for him or not, our Savior is born, Christ our King, and unto us salvation he brings, so let our loving hearts enthrone him!
Alleluia.
Amen
