Christmas Eve Reflection

Reflection for Christmas Eve, 2012.

Luke 2:1-20

"There was no room for them at the inn."

“Let every heart prepare him room.” Isaac Watts

“O holy Child of Bethlehem, descend to us, we pray;
Cast out our sin, and enter in, be born in us today.” Phillips Brooks

I don't want to mingle too many of my own words with the beautiful poetry of the scriptures and these carols.

But I wanted to point our attention to something we may miss this Christmas. It's right in front of our eyes, but we might miss it.

This line from Luke's story: “she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.”

“because there was no place for them in the inn.”

the stable was the place where God was welcomed. The inn had no place.

And I guess the thought that's going through my mind is this:

is my heart an inn or a stable?

The inn is a place of activity – of meal-preparation, of housekeeping, of eating and coming and going.

The inn is the place of business, of making money, of sustaining a livelihood.

The inn is a place of noise – the noise of news and entertainment and jokes.

there was no place for them in the inn.

Instead “Mary gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger”

the stable is a place of insignificance, it's a place dirty with the natural world, it's messy because it's not trying to keep an image – it's not trying to impress. It's just there.

It's quiet except for the occasional rustling of hoofs in the hay.

And it's in the stable that God is welcomed. It's in the manger that Mary's firstborn is laid.

Isaac Watts's line: “let every heart prepare him room” has been going through my mind a lot recently.”

I can't receive God into my life if I'm busy, noisy, crowded with stuff and news and worries and business.

There is no place in my heart if my heart is a crowded inn.

But if I come as I am before God, if I let go of my need for control, for busyness, for noise and preoccupation. If I let go of my need to put my best foot forward. In the stillness of the stable, God can be born in us today. Amen.