No Room For Christ, Yet Room For Us! # 1

No Room For Christ, Yet Room For Us! # 1

"There was no room for them in the inn" (Luke 2:7).

"Yet there is room" (Luke 14:22).

Years ago, when the Germans invaded the Low Countries, the officials of a small Belgian community prepared to flee. Their village church contained a famous Van Dyck painting of Christ, and to save this treasure, the burgonmaster and his wife loaded it on a truck and started for Southern France. During their whole hazardous journey they found no welcome for the priceless painting of the Saviour, no roof under which the masterpiece could be sheltered. Because the weather was cold and stormy, they used its large frame and canvas as a shelter from rain and wind, until, months later, it was safely housed.

As I wish every one of you not a merry Christmas (for who, considering the American lives lost hourly in the war, the souls constantly endangered in the present conflict, can be merry in a carnal, careless way?) but a blessed, Christ-centered Christmas in your soul and family circle, I remind you that this Belgian incident represents on a small scale the startling contradiction continuously in progress since the first Christmas. Millions have closed the door of the hearts and homes to Jesus; yet in His unfathomable love He still stretches forth His hands with the invitation of love "Come to Me." The striking contrast of nineteen centuries is summarized in this mystery of mercy and misbelief: the double truth of our Christmas text: first, the words of Luke, chapter two, verse seven, "There is no room for them in the inn," and then the Saviour's pledge of peace, Luke, chapter fourteen, verse twenty-two, "Yet there is room."

1. Sinful Men Refuse To Receive The Sinless Christ Child

Before the war the newspapers described a $5,000 crib made for a baby born into one of Europe's royal families. Five thousand dollars worth of carving, metal work, studded jewels, and artistry all for a human child! Yet, when Jesus, sinless and stainless, born of a virgin by a marvelous miracle, came into the world, His parents had not even a plain cot on which He could lie. They laid Him in a manger, the feeding trough of animals. You have seen that manger glorified on Christmas postcards as an ornate bed, bright with dazzling colors, pictured in a pillared, vaulted room. Famous painters have reproduced it as a substantial piece of furniture, not unlike the little crib in which perhaps you were cradled, and have depicted worshiping angels and celestial musicians hovering about it. But how utterly different the poverty of the Saviour's birth! Most of you cannot imagine the conditions in that stable where the King of kings came into this world. His birthplace was probably a cave dug into a hill outside the inn, a stable for beasts of burden; a dirty, smelly place that few American communities would tolerate.

Why was the Lord of glory born an outcast? Our text explains, "There was no room for them in the inn," and no willingness to accommodate them, we may add. It was every man for himself in those days, and men before women, particularly women with children. We may assume that, if there was no room in the inn probably no resting place in the little town was available on that Christmas eve. Modern Bethlehem has only 8,000 inhabitants - in the Saviour's day it may have been only one-tenth as large. Who among the villagers would be interested and warmhearted enough to shelter a couple that expected a baby within a few hours? Who would bother with them when it would be so much more convenient to rent space to others in the crowd registering for the census? Mary and Joseph may have had friends or even relatives in Bethlehem, but apparently all doors were barred to them. The priests, the Levites, the scribes, the Pharisees, the businessmen, the traders, the workmen, the shrewd housewives all those "of the house and lineage of David?" who had come to Bethlehem at the decree of Caesar Augustus and his governor never dreamed that they could have accepted the most startling opportunity for service mortal man has ever known, the privilege of providing quarters for the promised Christ Child, the Redeemer of mankind. If they saw Mary and Joseph, they doubtless raised their proud heads higher, the more disdainfully to look down on the couple that had come from despised Galilee at such an inappropriate time.

The whole Christmas story, despite its Palestinian setting and its distance in time, has modern and American counterparts. We read that all the people had enrolled for taxation, and we begin to compute our new taxes, the highest in American history, levied for the year drawing to its close, with more people than ever before making returns. As we see Mary and Joseph on the road, traveling from Nazareth to Bethlehem, we think of the tremendous military and industrial movements in the United States that have made many of you journey far and often, that today station your soldiers and defense workers away from home. Recalling the crowded conditions in Bethlehem, we survey the many overcrowded American communities, where some of you now hear this Christmas message in cramped quarters, trailer camps, furnished rooms. When you find the Holy Family surrounded by unsympathetic people, you will be inclined to draw comparisons with the fact that you, too, are a stranger in a strange place, that no one paid attention to you, except those who can make money through your patronage. Yet it seems to me that the most striking similarity between the first Christmas and this anniversary is the rejection of Jesus. Multitudes still have no room for Him. Before we begin to denounce the unfriendly citizens of David's city, we should admit that masses in America, had Mary and Joseph come to their homes this morning, would have refused to welcome them. More than half our population has heard of Christ's merciful love; millions celebrate the day of His birth intensively and speak His name in holiday greetings; yet consistently, year after year, they have closed their hearts to Him, saying in effect, "There is no room in my shriveled, hate-filled, care-crowded soul for that Child in the manger."

~Walter A. Maier~

(continued with # 2)