It’s Christmas Eve, and maybe your mind is on a half-dozen, last-minute preparations for a family gathering: Who will show? Did I cook or overcook the turkey? Will Uncle George like the cologne we got him, and will Aunt Alice’s little Tommy throw another hissy fit if he has to behave for more that 27 seconds?
Perhaps you’re alone, just you and The Hallmark Channel, no family or friends around you. And maybe you’re wondering if anybody cares anymore.
Or maybe you’re piling the kids in the car, wondering why the church has to have a Christmas Eve service anyway?
We’re just ordinary people trying to get through this thing called Christmas, aren’t we? We’ve got our schedules, assignments, and plans.
Christmas can exacerbate your own loneliness, even if you’re not alone.
The Yule Tide Season, complete with all its fun and festivities, makes life more complicated, stressful, and downright dangerous, pushing us to the edge and some, plumb over it.
Maybe it would be a decent idea for us to revisit the innkeeper—not the one down at the Hampton Inn—but the guy who was there the night God came looking for a vacancy in Bethlehem.
The innkeeper was a business owner, and business was booming, thanks to Caesar and that government regulation requiring everyone to go back to the home town of their ancestors for a census. So, when a young pregnant woman and her bewildered looking husband showed up asking for a place to bed down, what was he to do?
Every room was occupied.
It wasn’t that he outright rejected them and their child-to-be. His stress level was sky-rocketing, already. He simply couldn’t make room for them.
Can’t we see just a teeny, little bit of ourselves in that innkeeper? It’s not that we dislike Jesus. He’s a wonderful person, but we simply don’t have the time or the space for him, for like a baby, once he moves in, he will demand more time and more attention—oh yes, lots of it.
For all who feel a tad conflicted at Christmas, let me introduce you to another innkeeper, not a real one, but don’t let that little tidbit get in the way of the story.
This innkeeper’s name is William Spurling, and he’s in the 7th grade.
William Spurling was big for his age, and a little slow mentally. But he was a good boy, and all the kids liked him. In fact, they wanted him for a friend because he was big enough to take up for them if they needed him.
When it came time for the Christmas program, William Spurling wanted to be a shepherd, but the teacher decided that he would make a better innkeeper than a shepherd, since he was so big. So, she gave him the task of being the rough, gruff innkeeper.
When Mary and Joseph came to the inn and knocked on the door, William Spurling opened it. And when they asked for a place to stay, he said harshly, “There is no place for you to stay. There is no room in the inn.”
Joseph said, “But my wife is tired and weary and she is expecting a baby. Isn’t there just a small room somewhere where we could rest?”
Once again, William Spurling said, with as deep a voice as he could muster, “You’ll have to find a place somewhere else. There is no room in the inn.”
Once more Joseph pleaded just for some place for them to stay the night. Then there was a long pause, one of those pauses that is as embarrassing for the audience as it is for the cast.
William Spurling had forgotten his next line.
Behind the stage, one of the prompters said in a voice loud enough for the audience to hear, “No, be gone! No, be gone!”
Finally, William Spurling said, with softness in his voice, “No, be gone.”
Mary and Joseph sadly turned to leave. But as they did, suddenly William Spurling regained his voice and said, “Wait a minute! You can stay in my room, and I’ll sleep in the shed.”
In the stunned silence that followed, the teacher thought the play was ruined, until, until she caught the truth of William Spurling’s words, words which communicated the real truth of Christmas: “No, you can stay in my room, and I’ll sleep in the shed.”
My prayer on this Christmas Eve is that you and I will pause long enough to invite Jesus in, making room for him, not simply as one among many, but as the focal Person of our inn, even if that means sleeping in the shed.