Making Room for Jesus on Christmas

If the pregnant couple who had knocked on the door of the inn in Bethlehem looking for a place for their baby to be born had been the king and queen who were preparing to give birth to the new prince, the reaction that they received might have been different. If Mary and Joseph had shown up with a whole trail of donkeys rather than just one, along with a mob of adoring fans, the innkeeper might have been able to make some room. The innkeeper would have known that having the heir to the throne born in his inn would be great for business, it would have made him and his establishment look really good. But, because nobody knew who Mary and Joseph were, nobody made any particular effort to make room for them, and instead Mary wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them (Luke 2:7b).

The innkeeper was not the only one who couldn't seem to make room for Jesus. The religious leaders of the time also didn’t see Jesus’s presence beneficial enough to support. The Pharisees were focused on their liturgy and how their religion could benefit them, and not on the actual heart and soul of God’s law. They were too blinded by their self-centered desires and pride to see that Jesus was the Messiah. They *clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside [they] are full of greed and wickedness (Luke 11:39b). *

During Jesus’s ministry, he didn’t tend to associate himself with those who thought of themselves as righteous, the ones who are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean (Matthew 23:27b). Jesus instead spent the majority of his time with the “sinners”, or rather the ones whose sin was the most apparent. He did this because they had room in their hearts for him, not because of their sin, but because of their awareness of it, their humility. Their hearts were not too full of themselves to allow room for Jesus. These people were not thinking about how Jesus could further whitewash their tombs or clean the outside of their dish, but how he could take from them the guilt of their sins. Jesus came for these people, the ones who were willing to be broken down and be remade like him, the ones who were willing to be reborn. 

So this Christmas, and ever onwards, let us not look for ways that we can be glorified, our sins justified, our ambitions manifested, or our outsides to be cleaned, but rather how we can humble ourselves and constantly take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ (2 Corinth. 10:5b). Let us seek to be broken down, so that Christ may build us up with a foundation on him. The decision to follow Jesus is not a cost-benefit analysis weighed against our self image and progress in life, but rather the decision to seek the Truth at all costs to our ego. When Jesus knocks on the door to your life, prepare him room. 

Let every heart prepare him room.