Make Room: A Devo by Mark Hall From Casting CrownsSample

Room in Your Heart

It’s amazing how we’ve run out of room for Jesus in our Christmas now. It’s getting harder and harder to say the word Christmas in public or to hear songs directly about Jesus Christ. It’s getting more rare to see Nativity scenes, and it’s becoming more rare in our family moments to even hear his name. It’s like we’re running out of room for Christ at Christmas even though his name is the root of the word and the reason the season exists.

The message of Christmas is of a Savior King who has no home on Earth but who has come to give us an eternal home by saving us from our sin. The entire Christmas season is a memorial to the selflessness of Jesus, he who being in the very nature God, still took the form of a servant. Jesus left his throne and lowered himself to come to us. The first people to find out about him were the shepherds, the lowest of the low. Baby Jesus lay where the animals ate. The fact that he stepped out of heaven at all is hard to grasp, but it is such a beautiful picture of his resolve to bridge the gulf sin created between God and man, his highest creation.

The innkeeper played an important role in the Christmas story, and he did exactly what most of us would do. We’d like to think that we would give Jesus our well-appointed guest room. We would sleep on the couch and let him have our best. We elevate ourselves to think there’s no way we’d ever snub a stranger looking for a place to stay.

Yet we struggle to find a spot to read the Nativity story in our family Christmas. We’re worried it might make someone uncomfortable, or it might be embarrassing, or everyone might not believe the same. All it takes is an awkward family moment to shut us down. We imagine ourselves to be the gracious host, but we end up being just another busy innkeeper.

Starting this year, if the biggest step we can take is just to make room for Jesus in our Christmas family celebration, that is a step. Maybe we’ll see that making room for him this Christmas changed the atmosphere in the room a little bit with some tense family situations. Maybe it will set the tone for a change. Maybe if we make room for him at Christmas,  we’ll make room in January and beyond.