No room at the inn

 This week's verses are Luke 2:1-7:

Now in those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus to register all the empire for taxes. This was the first registration, taken when Quirinius was governor of Syria. Everyone went to his own town to be registered. So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and family line of David. He went to be registered with Mary, who was promised in marriage to him, and who was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in strips of cloth and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

 This is the story behind our idealized nativity scenes. During the final days of the pregnancy, Joseph and Mary are forced to travel to another state to take care of some bureaucratic paperwork required of them by the occupying Roman administration that ruled over Judea at the time. Imagine having to travel to do your IRS paperwork right in the tail end of the last trimester of your pregnancy, when you could be due any time!

So that's the situation Joseph and Mary find themselves in. But it gets worse: This is before you could book a nice airbnb online from the comfort of your home. When they arrive, the find all of the accommodations are full. There is no vacancy except in the manger.

The classic nativity scene makes the manger seem not so bad. We picture it as a kind of quaint bassinet, in the airy outdoors, dignified by the wise men and their extravagant gifts. But the real manger was a cave that was used as a barn. Imagine having to give birth to your first child, exhausted from the journey, in a dank cave full of animal manure, flies, and parasites, with dirt and straw everywhere, denied the welcome of the inn nearby that others are able to enjoy.

Is that what you would expect for the grand entrance of the most important person ever to live? Imagine the scene. The stench. The chaos and discomfort. It instantly dispels the idea that Jesus came to this world for his own benefit, or in some bubble of godly exceptionalism that spared him the discomforts the rest of us are stuck with. He was born into suffering and injustice, not the privileged royal luxury he deserved.

But this is also the welcome we ourselves give to Jesus sometimes. God demands our worship and our presence, but do we make room for him? And if we do make room, is it the best time slot or is it what fits after all of our "important" priorities are taken care of first?

We promise ourselves to spend more time studying the Bible or praying. We make new year's vows to pray daily. But then we have to work, and our friends are doing something tonight, and we want to get some exercise in, and there's a new series, or a new podcast episode, and maybe we have some projects to take care of around the house, or maybe our spouse wants some "us" time, and before you know it there's no room at the inn. If we fit him in at all, it's the crap time slot, when we're worn out, distracted, watching the clock count down to bedtime or our next "important" commitment.

We forget that Jesus is literally the most important person ever to exist! He is God incarnate. Why do we let others jump the queue and take the prime slots in our schedule until there is no room left? Why do we give priority to things that will perish with our flesh and ignore our truest eternal friend and the investment he asks of us? How can we tell him, "sorry, no vacancy, it wouldn't be right to cancel any of our current bookings," if he is our highest priority?

Instead of making a place of honor for him, we leave him to wait in the fringes of our life, with the animals and debris, so we can say to ourselves that we haven't refused him, without really welcoming him either. He asks to be invited into our hearts, into the center of our lives, but at best we keep him on the surface, left outside, but never invited into the warmth of our inner dwelling place. But there's always room for politics, entertainment, sports, our circle of friends, our family, our career, or any number of worldly things.

So, when you see a nativity scene, and you see the injustice and insult of how our savior was welcomed into the world, ask if you yourself have room to welcome him. If not, maybe it's time to give him the honor he deserves.