Advent Anticipation: Prepare Him Room

Luke 2:1-7

Rev. Stephen H. Wilkins

Georgetown Presbyterian Church

December 17, 2006

(Preached during a Las Posadas service presented by the GPC children’s choirs)

This past summer when our family went to Colorado on vacation, we went one evening into the visitor’s center for Rocky Mountain National Park. I remember overhearing a conversation between the park ranger at the information desk, and a weary couple who were not from the United States. It was about 8:30 in the evening, and they were desperately looking for a place to stay. It was a weekend night, and every motel in the area was full. There were no accommodations in the park. The ranger informed the couple that the nearest lodging was probably about two hours away.

The couple left the visitor’s center. I don’t know where they stayed that night...

At least in a symbolic way, it’s possible that their names were Mary and Joseph. On that evening, there was no room at the inn in Estes Park, Colorado.

The children just presented an adaptation of the annual Christmas festival, Las Posadas. Las Posadas is a Mexican custom in the Roman Catholic Church. It is celebrated for nine consecutive evenings, beginning December 16. (It is called a novena, which is a fancy word for a nine-day period of prayer and devotion.) Nine homes or families in the neighborhood are selected in advance to represent the posadas or inns. Each night of the novena the families taking part form a procession and make a pilgrimage to one of the inns. They carry candles and sing hymns depicting the story of Mary and Joseph traveling to Bethlehem. Songs are sung at the door of the "inn". On each of the first eight nights the family of the "inn" sings a little song which indicates that there is no lodging for the Holy Family, and Mary and Joseph are sent away. But before they go, the whole procession, singing, passes through the rooms of the home. On the last night the procession is admitted to the house in which a Christmas crib with a manger has been set up.

If Joseph and Mary were to show up at your doorstep tonight, what would you do?

That’s a good question.

If Joseph and Mary were to show up at your home this evening, what would you do? I wish I could say that I would let them in, but I don’t think I can honestly say that I would open my door for strangers at my doorstep. There are too many risks involved in letting strangers into our homes. It’s just not practical in our day and age.

But then again, I’m not sure that being practical is what hospitality is all about. Hospitality is about welcoming the stranger, about being lavish toward our guests, about making room for others.

The Bible tells us that when Mary and Joseph went to Bethlehem to register for the census, they could find no place to stay. No doors opened for them, except that of some barn out behind someone’s house.

Our Savior and Lord was not greeted by a very hospitable world.

Maybe that’s the point, though. Maybe we’re supposed to notice that even though the world did not welcome the birth of the Messiah, God loves the world enough to send his Son anyway. Maybe we’re supposed to notice that it is into a world that is at odds with God, or a world that is too busy to recognize God, or a world that is indifferent to God – maybe we’re supposed to notice that it is precisely into this kind of world that God came. God came, so that he could redeem.

The thing is, things haven’t changed much after 2000 years. The manner in which our Savior and Lord was greeted two thousand years ago continues today. For you see, ours is a world that is indifferent to the plight of the homeless, the oppressed, the orphans and widows, the hungry, the sick, the aged. Ours is a world where people walk on the other side of the road in order to avoid having to encounter a beggar. Ours is a world where we will pass a person in distress, because we assume that someone else will care enough to stop and offer help. Ours is a world that says, "I don’t have time to give you the attention you need." Ours is a world that says, "Don’t get involved--it’s none of your business."

And Jesus reminds us that as we do not do it to the least of these, we do not do it to him. And so when we close the door on the Josephs and Marys of the world, we are closing the door on Jesus.

It still is not a very hospitable and welcoming world we inhabit.

Yet, into such a world Jesus still comes.

In the book of Revelation, among the last recorded words of Jesus in the Bible, Jesus says "Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with them, and they with me." He’s talking about your heart. In Bethlehem 2000 years ago, there was no room at the inn. Today, is there room in your heart for Jesus? Amidst the Christmas parties, and the end-of-year flurry of activity, and the coming-and-going between activities for our children, and the constant ringing of your cell phones, and the push to do more, more, more... Is there room for Jesus?

Do you hear him: Knock, knock, knock, at the door of your heart? And even if you hear him, do you open the door and welcome him into your life?

In the sanctuary of the Third Creek Presbyterian Church in Cleveland, North Carolina, the church where I was ordained and served for three and a half years, is a stained glass representation of Holman Hunt’s famous painting of Jesus. There’s a stone archway, ivy-covered bricks, Jesus standing before a heavy wooden door, his hand positioned to knock on it. But there’s an important detail that people frequently miss. Holman Hunt intentionally left out something which only the most careful eye would note as missing. There is no doorknob on the outside of the door. The door can only be opened from the inside. The message is clear: God comes to you, steps up to your heart, and knocks. But it’s up to you to let him in.

At Advent, we are reminded to take seriously the line of the Christmas carol: Let every heart prepare Him room.

My friends, the miracle of Christmas is that God has loved us and has come to us in Jesus Christ long before we ever even thought of turning to God and loving God. It is because the light of the world has shone in the darkness that we can see the light and be drawn into the light of the love of Christ. God in Christ has overcome the hostility of this world. Despite our inhospitality and our failure to welcome the Savior into this world, the Savior came nonetheless.

He came. And he loved. And he showed us the way. And he conquered death and offers us eternal life.

And he knocks at the door of your heart.

When he knocks, will you open the door and let him in?

Let every heart prepare him room.

Amen.