Weekly Theme December 21 through 27

The Innkeeper

 “...Joseph Son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.  She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”

  -Matthew 1:20b-21

Have you ever felt left out and alone?  Have you ever felt that there was no room for you in a certain situation? Being made to feel like there is no room for you is something that Mary and Joseph and the soon to be born baby Jesus experienced upon their arrival in Bethlehem.  Mary, who was very pregnant, and Joseph had traveled over 70 miles from the village of Nazareth to Bethlehem to participate in the Roman census.  When they arrived there was no room for them.  There was no room for Jesus.

Unfortunately, that is still the attitude that is shown toward Jesus.  Even those of us who claim to be Christians and follow Jesus will still hang out the “no vacancy” sign when it comes to letting Jesus into areas of our lives that we would rather keep off limits.  When Jesus tries to bring change into an area of our lives with which we are comfortable we can often respond by giving forth an attitude that says, “Hold on, Jesus.  I might follow you but there is a limit to what you can do in my life.  That area you want to mess around in is off limits.  There is no room for you there.”

Jesus is quite used to being told that there is no room for him in our lives.