No Room for Them

“There was no room for them in the inn” (Luke 2:7).

As Christmas day brings us around to the blessed story of the Savior’s birth, it reminds us of a circumstance connected with that event which still is timely in its application. When Joseph and Mary came to Bethlehem, they were forced to put up in a stable “because there was no room for them in the inn.”

Today, amid this commercialized Christmas, this overworked headache of expensive giving, God’s great gift — the first Christmas gift — stands often unrecognized. It is easy enough to sing Christmas carols and put on pageants, the tribute of our lips, but how many of us honestly face Christ Himself and His challenge of discipleship at any cost? There is room for many things today, room even for much about Jesus — but is there room for Him?

Let it be observed that so far as we know, this innkeeper may not have been unkind or discourteous to Joseph and Mary. I don’t read that he drove them away when they came to him. He may have been very polite and even expressed his regrets — but just the same, there was no room for them. So today, most people turn down the Lord because they are preoccupied. They have nothing against Him; they may even speak well of Him. But there is no room — their hearts and homes are filled with other things.

What other guests do you have in your heart and home that shut out Jesus? For certainly the reason there is no room is because there are others in His place. Is there anybody or anything in all this universe important enough to take His place? I beg of you, on this Christmas day, do not make of it a hollow mockery by paying a wordy tribute to the Christ while you refuse Him your heart.
— Vance Havner, Reflections on the Gospels