Are You Ready for Christmas?

Luke 2:7b

“…there was no place for them in the Inn.”

Are you ready for Christmas?  I am sure you have had one or two people ask you that question over the past month.   Normally that is a simple way of asking, “Is your tree up?  Have you decorated?  Are your Christmas cookies made?   Have you finished shopping?  Are you ready for company to arrive?  Have you bought your groceries for Christmas dinner?”  When people ask me they usually are also asking, “Are the services ready?  Is your Christmas sermon written?” 

Usually Linda has us more than ready for Christmas. This Christmas however we were kind of limited on how ready we could be.  We have more guests than we have beds and bedrooms.  Steven is sleeping on our coach in the living room.  A friend of Dora’s and her little toddler son are sleeping in our home office, on a thin mattress on the floor.  Nobody’s complaining.  We are having a great time.  I just wish we had comfortable places for everyone to sleep.  You might say that this Christmas our home is a modern day Bethlehem.  There’s no room at the Inn. 

That got me to thinking. It changed the way I understood this question – “Are You ready for Christmas?”  Think about it – having cookies baked, decorations up, presents bought and wrapped – none of that makes you ready.  Christmas isn’t about those things.  Christmas is about the birth of Jesus, about the coming of God into this world and into our lives.  That should be what this question refers to. – “Are you ready for Christmas?  Are you ready for God to come to you?  Are you ready for Jesus?”  Or is your life, like our apartment – so full of the stuff and activities of this world, that you just don’t have much room for Him? 

Linda and I have been so excited about having Jon, Dora, Kellan and Steven, as well as Dora’s friend and her son, with us for Christmas.  They have all been here since last Sunday.  Yet so far all I have been able to do is fit them in at times when I am not busy with something else.  Too often that is how we fit Jesus in – give Him a place on the floor in the office, let him fill in the cracks of our lives, give him those fleeting moments when we aren’t already busy with something else.  We offer him our version of a manger.  Are you ready for Christmas?  Is there room at your Inn?  Our answer to that question is probably not what we wish it would be. 

Thank God that His answer is exactly what you and I need it to be.  Our God’s answer is a resounding yes.  When Jesus was born 2000 years ago, God had prepared everything.  In fact the Bible tells us that “in the fullness of time,” that is when everything was ready, “God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the full rights of son.”  In spite of the fact that we too often have no room for Him, Jesus left heaven to make room for us in His family.  That’s why He took up residence in that manger, and lived for a while in this world.  That’s He died on the cross – to pay for your room and mine in His Father’s mansions.  That’s why He came to you in baptism – to adopt you into His family.  That’s why He comes to you in Holy Communion.  He gives you a foretaste of the feast He has waiting for You at His Father’s table. 

Are you ready for Christmas?  Thank God He was ready… ready to be laid in that manger… ready to be nailed to that cross. There may have been no room for Jesus in that Inn, yet because of Him God has a room ready for you and for me, forever in His home.  Merry Christmas!