“No Room in the Inn”

Rev. John W. Fowler

December 21, 2003

Text: Luke 2:1-21

The scripture reading this morning is from the second chapter of the Gospel of Luke:

It was a Friday afternoon; I remember it well. I had been playing tennis and when I came back, my wife announced to me that it was time to go to the hospital. I didn’t think she was serious but she indeed was serious; it was time to go to the hospital. Our first son took so long in coming I had about decided he wasn’t coming, but sure enough he did. He decided to come, “I guess this is May 22nd.” When we went to North Side Hospital, which is a baby factory in Atlanta, I really didn’t worry about there being room there. I worried about a lot of other things, but I didn’t worry about their having room because they did this kind of thing all the time and they had other babies there as well. The child was born. We were excited, and coming home again I thought, “I don’t know what we are going to do with this child.”

I was worried about that, but I wasn’t worried about where he was going to stay. We had a one room apartment and his crib had been there for a long time. We were ready for that. When we moved back to North Carolina a month later he had his own room — the nursery, next to our bedroom. In hind sight, it would have been better to put him on the other end of the house; we would have gotten more sleep. We did that when he was a teenager. But when Steve was born and Cat was born, we put them right near us…(tape change)

….Christ Child. His birthday is December 25th. It is still easily missed. Will there be room in your heart and life this Christmas?

Why was there no room in the inn? Well Luke tells us that Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken for the entire Roman world. This was for draft purposes and taxation purposes. So Joseph, even though his wife was expecting any time, had to make that long journey, seventy or eighty miles easily. Imagine a donkey ride that long. They got there late and this was nothing fancy, but it is a courtyard. They had the little stables stalls, there, kind of like a camp ground, but the soldiers and the people who traveled more quickly had taken all of them, so when they got there, basically they couldn’t stay there because they were crowded; they were busy. So they had to go to the manger where the animals would be. It was a very simple reason.

Still people miss Christmas today because they are just simply too busy. I saw a survey about why people do not attend Church. One survey reported that fifty-five percent say they are simply just too busy. Another survey I read about why people don’t read the Bible. .Again, about forty-seven percent said they were too busy — which encourages me that at least they are saying they would like to read, they are just too busy. And then, when asked to describe their life, especially people fifty-five and under, over half said they were too busy and almost sixty percent of people who are Catholics said that they were too busy; I would go and say, “Don’t become a Catholic,” based on that survey.

People say, “I am too busy,” just like they say, “Good morning,” today. You can miss Christmas by being too busy. Some other people who missed it at Christmas time. First of all, King Herod. King Herod missed it because he was just simply blinded by his sin. (Saddam Hussein would be a good modern day analogy of King Herod.) King Herod killed several of his sons. He was a murderous man; he did a lot of good, as well.

Herod, when he found out that a king was to be born, he just deceitfully told his wise men, “Go search him out and then when you find him, let me know and I will come and worship him.”

He wasn’t going to worship him. He was going to kill him. He was going to wipe him out, like he would do any rival to his power. You don’t have be as sinful as King Herod, though, for sin to blind you and miss the Christ child. I think of the teachers and scribes and experts in the law, when they were asked about where the child was to be born, they could quote Micah 5:2:

They could quote it; they knew it. But did they join the Wise Men in the search? No. Why? They were comfortable. They were apathetic. They didn’t want any Savior to change their lives. They like things just they way they were.

You can miss Christmas because you just simply don’t want the Christ Child to change your life. I remember the Christmas Eve service almost thirty years ago so well — hearing a powerful message about Christ and his birth; hearing and seeing the Nativity scene and thinking the frightening thought: If I really believe that this Christ, born in a manger, is the Son of God, it will change my life. And I remember that was the most frightening aspect of really believing this incarnation, this Word becoming flesh, this Christmas message. But I went back to college that year a different person. I came back home. I had drifted away. Oftentimes we can miss Christ because we simply have drifted away. But we can come back. He beacons us to do that.

Jesus experienced rejection throughout his ministry. In his homecoming sermon He preached basically the message:

And they spoke well of Him: “This is Joseph’s son. He reads the scriptures well.” I am sure He did.

But then, when He began to rebuke them for their sin, they didn’t want to hear that. They didn’t want to hear the word repentant.

When the Messiah comes He is holy and He will call you to repent. People miss the Christ Child because they don’t want to repent. “I don’t want anyone to tell me I have sin in my life.” They showed Him the door. They showed Him the edge of the city. They were ready to throw Him out.

When the Christ Child comes into our lives He will change the way we love other people. In the 10th chapter of Luke a man asked Jesus, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” And He said, “Well, what do you say?”

He could quote it. And he said, “Well, who is my neighbor, Jesus?”

And Jesus told him the story of the Good Samaritan.

“A man fell among robbers and two people came, too busy, or didn’t want to get involved, but they just passed on by. But a Samaritan helped this man going to the road to Jericho. Who do you think was the neighbor?”

“Well, I guess it was the one who got involved and helped the one who had been beaten and left to die.”

When Christ comes into your life, He will change the way you feel about your neighbor. Everyone is your neighbor.

And then there were those religious leaders who did not understand why Jesus spent time with the worst of sinners. “Why do you do that? They will defile you. They will contaminate you.”

Jesus said, “Well, it’s this way. The reason I spend time with them, it’s like a shepherd who has a hundred sheep and he loses one. He leaves the ninety-nine. He keeps looking for him, looking for him; finds him; is excited; is thrilled; he rejoices.

It is like the woman who has lost a coin. She sweeps and sweeps and sweeps. And finally she finds the coin and when she finds it, she rejoices. She wants everyone else to rejoice with her.

Or it is like the man who has two sons and the younger son wants his inheritance now. He goes, lives a very sinful lifestyle and then he comes back home; he is sorry, he really is. It is time for rejoicing. I mean really rejoicing! But those religious teachers were like the elder brother in that story. They were self-righteous. They couldn’t understand a God who would love someone even though they have lived a very sinful life. But that’s what the Savior does. He forgives us. He saves us. That is why the Savior came.

Why was there no room in the inn? There is busyness. There is sin. There is apathy. But I would say the biggest reason today: we don’t want Him to change our lives. We want to stay in charge. But there were some people that Christmas who did find room for Christ. I think of Elizabeth and Zechariah. Zechariah getting the news from Gabriel that he was going to be a father. He didn’t believe it, so he didn’t talk during that pregnancy. Elizabeth has a child in her old age and they offer the gift to the Lord that Christmas of praise. Zechariah said:

They were thrilled that Christmas that they would be the parents of John the Baptist, the forerunner.

Another gift that we can give to our Lord is the gift of sharing this good news. I think of the shepherds. They didn’t miss Christmas when the angels appeared to them shouting, “ Glory to God in the highest,” and singing. They didn’t say, “Well, that was nice,” and go on back to their sheep. They went to find Mary and Joseph. And then, they couldn’t keep quiet about it.

Sometimes today we think it is strange that someone actually talks about their faith. But when something has changed your life — the most important news in the world — the shepherds shared the good news. One of the greatest gifts we can give God is to share this good news in a way that is suitable to your personality, your situation. But let people know that Christ has changed you.

Another gift I see at Christmas time in those who did not miss Christmas — Simeon and
Anna. They brought the gift of waiting and prayer. Simeon , after the child was born and had been presented in the temple, took the baby Jesus and said

Basically, “I have been promised that I would see the Messiah before I would die,” and now he has seen Him.

And then here comes Anna, who has been at the temple all of her life — both great men and women of prayer. What a great gift that is today to bring to our Lord the gift of waiting and prayer this Christmas.

Of I think of the Wise Men who followed the star until they finally came to the birth. They brought gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. They knew that this was the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

But especially I want you to know they brought the gift of worship. They worshipped the King. They were in awe of Him. And still one of the greatest gifts we bring to our Lord this Christmas is the gift of worship.

And last, but certainly not least, is the inspiring example of the gift that Mary and Joseph brought to the Lord and bring to us today, and that is the gift of obedience with gratitude. Mary was very willing to be the handmaiden on the Lord. Whatever it took, she was willing to be the mother of the Lord. Joseph, even though he didn’t quite understand, was willing to be her husband and the father. And they did their part. And there was sacrifice involved. There was leaving their home town. There was the long journey. There was watching their child suffer upon the cross. But they did. One of the greatest gifts we can bring to our Lord is the gift of obedience to His will, with gratitude for the life that He has blessed us with.

Why do we do it? We do it because the Word became flesh. Christmas is about God becoming man, loving us so much that He would live among us. John said it this way:

You read the gospel of John, and John is an eye witness. You can sense his excitement that, “I saw Him. I was there. I was with Him with the woman at the well, and her life was changed. And the woman who was caught in the act of adultery. I mean, these are sinful people, but after Jesus met with them their lives were just totally changed. I saw the man who had been lame for thirty-eight years and he got up and started walking when Jesus asked him if he wanted to be well. I saw the five thousand people being fed. I don’t know where all that bread came from, and fish. I saw that man who had been born blind. He could see! He didn’t understand, but he said, ‘I once was blind, but now I see. That man gave me my sight.’ I was there when He called forth, ‘Lazarus, come forth,’ and this man had been dead in the tomb for three days; he came out. But, more than that: I saw Him die on the cross. I saw Him suffer on the cross for us. I heard Him say, ‘Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.’ I saw him die. But I saw him rise from the dead. I saw the risen Christ. I saw Him several times. He is alive.”

John says, “I guess if the world could contain all the books, that still wouldn’t tell half the story of this wonderful Savior.”

When we make room for the Christ Child, we discover he had come to give us a wonderful, abundant life. Part of that happens when we examine our lives. Ebenezer Scrooge had to do it. I guess he was kind of forced to do it when the three ghosts, Past, Present, and Future come and he examined his life and greed had crowded out the Christ at Christmas.

The story I want to end with though, is a movie, “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Jimmy Stewart plays George Bailey and I think one of the most common reasons that we crowd Christ out at Christmas is that we are worried and discouraged, oftentimes about money, and that’s really what he was discouraged about. He had lost money; it had been misplaced. Someone found it, but they didn’t want him to know about it. He was ready to take his life, he was so discouraged.

He was ready to jump into the water, the icy cold water that would take his life. Angel Clarence jumps in instead so he will save him. Clarence is trying to earn his wings. That’s not really in the Bible, but it’s OK; it’s Hollywood. But he is given a wish.

George Bailey says, “I’d have been better off if I had never been born,” because he knows he’s worth more dead than alive, with his insurance policy. So Clarence gives him his wish. He gets to see what life in his home town would be like if he had never been born. And he goes from place to place and the people are much harder, harsher, and the little town filled with loving, caring neighbors is not there any more, all because he wasn’t born.

Well, he is given the chance. He changes his tune. He is given a chance and he discovers it is a wonderful life. He goes back home and the newspaper is there to take pictures of him. That’s fine; he smiles; it’s OK. They are there with a warrant for his arrest. That’s OK. He wishes them a Merry Christmas. He doesn’t really care. He is hugging and kissing all his children and his wife and those things that were bothering him don’t matter any more. Something has happened to him. And then, all his friends and neighbors come in and they take care of his debt, one at a time, tossing all the money. They sing Auld Lang Syne and the movie ends, everybody smiling, everybody happy.

What happens? He has discovered it’s a wonderful life.

But I believe it happens at any Christmas when we make room for the Christ Child.

Let us pray. Father, we confess at times, for various reasons, we have allowed You to be crowded out of our lives. We ask, once again, that we would invite You, fresh and anew, to come into our hearts, we pray, Lord Jesus. Amen