“There Is Room”

Christmas Eve

December 24, 2023

Isaiah 9:2-7

Luke 2:1-20

Every year, it’s the same thing. What can a preacher say about Christmas that hasn’t already been said? We have the story memorized. It has been memorialized in pageant after pageant. The donkey, the angel, the stable, the innkeeper, the shepherds, the wise men. No room. No time. No help. Alone underneath a starry sky with the penned-in animals looking on in wonder.

We’ve come to know the story so well that we don’t realize that we aren’t telling the real story but just our memory of it. We check out as it’s read each year. Or maybe we can recite it along with Linus as the kids stand around the puny little tree with one red ball hanging from the top. But the truth is, we don’t know the story at all. Not really.

There is no donkey. There is no stable. There is no innkeeper. As Luke tells it, there are no wise men. That’s in Matthew. And they come much later—perhaps a year or two after Jesus’ birth. Mary doesn’t go into labor while they are still searching for a place to lay their heads. They aren’t banished to the countryside, fated to give birth alone. They didn’t go door to door at every hotel, hearing from each businessman, “No room. No room.”

If we look closely at the story, we get a very different narrative than the one we have told ourselves and our children for centuries.

Luke places the story in the midst of Rome’s oppression. Caesar Augustus and Quirinius are in charge. They call the shots. Rome wants to know how many people they have under their thumb and what they do and how much they make. They want to know how much to charge for taxes. How hard to push. How far to go in order to keep the people in their place.

ALL the people were instructed to return to their birthplaces. Mary wasn’t the only pregnant woman on the road in those days. There were women and children, old men and young. Everyone’s lives had been upset over the census. The fact that they had to return to their hometowns meant many people traveling far distances with meager belongings. Joseph and Mary went to Bethlehem.

Bethlehem is the birthplace of David—the most faithful and honored king in all of Israel’s history. The prophets said the Messiah would come from his family tree. People would look to Bethlehem for the one who would free them from oppression.

As we read on, Luke tells us that while Joseph and Mary were residing in Bethlehem, the time came for Mary to give birth. Not while they were on the road. Not as the first night fell, and they were desperate for shelter. And she gave birth and wrapped the babe in simple cloth. She laid him in a feeding trough meant for the animals because ‘there was no room for them at the inn.’

The inn was just the guest room of the family home. The guest room was full, but the family room, where the animals were brought in for the night, still had space. It wasn’t really for sleeping, but it would be enough for the time being. With family coming and going, sleeping in the next room, and surrounded by the sounds of cooking and talking and singing, Mary went into labor. The women would have surrounded her—those who had many children instructing and encouraging her. The men would have left until the work was done.

The story we tell ourselves tends to be that of scarcity. There was no room. There was no family. There was no water. There was no time. We consider the meager shelter of a stable and a manger the miracle. But that’s not the miracle. The miracle is that God is with us. God provides. And there is room. There is family. That Jesus will become living water. The Bread of Life is born in Bethlehem—literally the City of Bread. The Messiah has come. What Israel had been waiting for was happening.

And it was happening right under the nose of Rome. The mighty kings and emperors and magistrates and governors would never see God coming. Because God comes in unexpected places. God comes to unremarkable people. What Luke is telling us in this story is that all the armies of the world can’t stop God from entering into humanity and turning our sinful and selfish ways upside down.

Luke will continue to set the political stage for us as his story unfolds. John will proclaim repentance and forgiveness while Tiberius and Pontius Pilate and Herod and Philip and Lysanias and Annas and Caiaphas rule the secular and sacred places of the known world. Jesus will enter the scene under the cloud of religious scandal and political corruption. He will push the envelope with his teachings and disrupt order with his healings. He will challenge authority and undermine the status quo. He will even confront and destroy death.

Slowly, as he preaches and teaches throughout the countryside, the people will begin to hear the good news—good news that true life isn’t about power or possessions, it isn’t about what has always been, it isn’t about making sure I get my own and you can fend for yourself. True life isn’t about silent nights and obedient donkeys and miraculous stables.

True life is about community and connection. It’s about gathering around to support and encourage when another is birthing a new life, a new hope, a new identity. It’s about making space for the unruly Spirit to make a holy mess of things while shepherding us into transformation. True life, the life of Christ, tells us through the angels that we don’t need to be afraid. God is with us. True life, the life birthed by Mary, encourages us through the shepherds that the world needs our message of hope. True life, the life that hung on a cross and emerged from a tomb, proclaims to us that our grief and fear and loss will be transformed into joy. Into love. Into compassion. Into community.

You see, that’s what Luke drives home throughout his gospel telling. When the world tells us that there is no room, there is no hope, there is no time—God tells us a story we thought we knew but are perhaps only really hearing now for the first time. We’ve never been alone. There is always hope. And when we make room for God, we find that there has always been a place for us to experience new life.

Pastor Tobi White

Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church

Lincoln, NE