Forty years ago, my sister-in-law Mary asked me a question that put me in a tight spot.
“Hey, Sis, got room for us this Christmas?”
Mary’s perfect picture of Christmas morning was her whole crew piling into my tiny living room.
I, on the other hand, envisioned a quiet, intimate time alone with my husband and children.
While I hemmed and hawed, she booked her plane ticket and invited herself in.
I gritted my teeth and did my Christian duty that year. After the chaos ended, I breathed a sigh of relief.
Until I realized that the Hurwitz family had made a standing reservation.
Same place. Same time. My living room. Every year.
It was never the peaceful Christmas I planned.
Suddenly, I understood the Bethlehem innkeeper I’d judged so harshly.
Every cell in my being screamed, “No room!”
Like the vilified innkeeper, I was at max capacity.
No margin for error. No budge in the budget. No space in the calendar.
No vacancy for weary travelers who would take the little I had left.
No room for the Christ child to come in and do what He does best.
But Jesus has a way of knocking at the most inopportune times. When worries crowd our hearts and love faces eviction, He asks us to let Him in.
We think He’s there to take our sugar-plum dreams. But Jesus offers so much more.
I’m so glad I didn’t send Mary away when she barged into my holiday. Year after year, my heart grew a little bigger as my living room became a little more crowded.
By 2016, I couldn’t imagine Christmas without her.
But then I got the dreaded call: Mary was sick, and it would be our last Christmas together.
So, this time, I called her. “Hey, Sis, got room for us this Christmas?”
I knocked on her door, and our whole crew piled in. Mary’s living room was bursting at the seams. We snuggled close and read Jesus’ words in John 14.
“My Father’s house has many rooms…I am going there to prepare a place for you…that you also may be where I am.” (v2-3, NIV)
That made Mary smile.
Bethlehem’s inn had no room. Our hospitality has its limits. But in our Father’s house, there’s room for everyone who wants to come in.
Jesus came to our home so that we could live in His. That’s the
perfect Christmas.
Christ with us is a message for everyone. And Christ in us is a quiet, intimate affair.
The Father has so much room in His heart for you, lonely traveler. And for you, too, overtaxed host. And for you, beloved child of God, caught between your will and His.
Isn’t it time to book your standing reservation?
Same place. Same time. Your heart. Every year.
