Make Room

Christmas Eve-24
Immanuel Lutheran, Chicago

“She laid him in a cattle trough, because there was no place for them in the inn.” (Luke 2:7). I wonder, how often does ‘finding space’ for Jesus sound like adding another thing on our to-do list? Along with shopping, and baking, and holiday cards, and decorating, and navigating family dynamics—not to mention working for social justice and peace on earth(!)—things quickly get complicated. Trying to make Christmas happen, whether for ourselves or loved ones, becomes overwhelming—especially when added to other crises—like job pressures, money worries, illnesses, addiction, grief and loss.

So, Christmas comes, if it comes at all, when we are minding our own business like that bunch of hard-working shepherds in fields near Bethlehem keeping watch over their sheep. What could have been more unexpected or out of place than a multitude of Angels, shining with heavenly glory announcing, “Do not be afraid. Don’t be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy for all the people.”

Has that ever happened to you? I have no trouble believing, as scripture says, that this announcement, once they managed to calm down, brought the shepherds great joy. I can even understand how the incarnation of God in Christ could bring joy big enough to include not just them, but all people.

An event like what happened to those shepherds is worth celebrating even today, two thousand years later. But that’s not what we’re doing today. Incredibly, the church has always insisted that the Christ event is not something that happened in history for a particular time, but it is something that happens over and over. Joy isn’t something we accomplish. It isn’t something the powerful bring into being. It is something that God, out of deep, deep love for us, shows up and gives us: namely the divine life in our very midst.

Could this joy be waiting for you this Christmas—not just today, but every day and not just for you in the singular you as in y’all? God’s love, and therefore, joy is God’s gift for all. God is the one who comes in the flesh for all flesh.

So, what’s wrong? How do we keep missing out on this? Or at least, how do I keep missing it? Well, let me tell you how Christmas joy happened once in front of me, and, like the innkeeper in Bethlehem, the door to my heart was closed.

It was a Christmas many years ago with extended family. Victoria, (not her real name), was the youngest of four sisters. Her older siblings were in high school and college when she was born. Vicky grew impatient at being smaller and excluded all the time. She worked at being grown up almost from the time she could walk. So, it wasn’t completely surprising when she announced one September, at age 5, that she was going to pick out and pay for Christmas presents all by herself.

She saved her allowance. She quietly observed what each person wanted; what they needed; and what they liked. She made her purchases only after she was confident, she had just the right gift. She wrapped them and placed them under the tree. She beamed anytime anyone tried to peek or poke at the gifts she had bought.
Looking back, I think she considered it a kind of coming of age. She was finally as much a part of Christmas as everyone else. Except, in many ways, she had done a much better job. There was something for everyone: a deodorant (just the right brand); a pair of socks to match a favorite outfit; a small picture of John Lennon (a favorite), bobby pins (because I forget why); a shampoo gentle on hair dye; toe-nail clippers, and for me—a new tooth brush just in time to replace my worn out and frayed one.

In response to her thoughtfulness, I did the worst thing possible—I laughed. We made fun of her gifts. We joked about how bad we must smell and about the condition each other’s toes nails. There were a lot of five-year-old tears shed that night. We made her cry. She felt rejected.

After the paper was rounded up and thrown away we realized that we had left another gift unclaimed that year. We were closed off and blind to the true gift of Christmas kindness and generosity which was so well expressed by Vicky’s simple thoughtful gifts. The true gift—God’s gift of the Christ child went unopened. That night, there was more than one gift-giver who was rejected.

Kindness, vulnerability, and love are easy to brush aside. Yet doing so comes at a cost. We close ourselves off to joy. God’s gift of new life in Christ is easily overlooked and rejected. Often the gift is returned without even being opened. There was no room for Jesus in Bethlehem. There is still no room for him today. The little town of Bethlehem today must be accessed by passing through barbed wire and a 30-foot-tall security wall. The nativity scene being displayed is strewn with the rubble of bombed buildings Minds are closed, our hearts fail to yield—they will not accept or even consider the gifts the Christ-child brings.

The gift of incarnation goes ‘all the way down.’ Incarnation means that God is in, with, under, and among all flesh, including our enemies. Incarnation extends beyond human life to include the wide expanse of the cosmos. Theologian Thomas Jay Ord has said, “Whenever I see something in nature, good, true, beautiful, lovely, or loving I think God is the source of that activity.” God is present there and active.

Mary said yes to Gabriel. Mary made room for the spirit at the expense of all those things we clutch onto—safety, reputation, success, property. Did she see her flesh for what it was—weak, powerful, human, and holy?

Let us pray. “God of the womb, it is not lost on us that you submitted to the body of a woman, trusting in it to protect and grow you. As we remember the nine months you dwelt in the womb, the body of God being nurtured and carried, remind us that our own bodies are worthy of such care and tenderness. May this be a season of sacred pause, as we allow time to be near to our own bodies, to protect and strengthen them. In a world that demands so much of us, remind us that Christ did not come to us in physical independence, allowing the world to take and use him without limitation. Show us the face of the Christ who was gravely dependent, who needed to be held, fed, washed. Who needed to be soothed and rocked to sleep. If we are to honor the divine in us, may it be this divinity—fully embodied, fully dignified in the body. Amen.” (Cole Arthur Riley, Black Liturgies: Prayers, Poems, and Meditations for Staying Human (New York: Convergent, 2024), 231.)

Make way, make room and Merry Christmas.