O Come all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant, O come ye, O come ye to Bethlehem...
Mama, may we play Mary & Joseph? Is it time for lunch?
O Come let us adore him. O Come let us adore him.
From the dinner table to parking lots, the car to Costco, their little voices are constantly ringing with song. Songs of His coming. Truth be told we cannot get them to stop singing. Really, we can't.
And then I wonder why I even want them to stop singing...
to focus on my gift list, to concentrate on this recipe, because other shoppers might not want to hear Hark! the Herald Angels Sing one. more. time?
Because there isn't room in my own heart for the coming King?
This coming week is normally one of great preparation. We prepare the goodies and gifts, clean and tidy our homes for Christmas parties, pack bags for trips to see family. No matter how hard we try to be still, busyness tends to overwhelm.
Voices of sweet little girls singing, sometimes shouting 'O come O come Emmanuel" remind me of what we should be preparing most--our hearts.
But with so many important things that have to be done how easy it is to forget, to fill our space and our hearts with things other than Him. How easily we forget to make room for Him.
Reading yesterday I was struck once again by the words of Charles Spurgeon:
Have you room for him? Never mind what the past has been; he can forget and forgive. It mattereth not what even the present state may be if thou mournest it. If thou hast but room for Christ he will come and be thy guest...Here is my royal Master--have you room for Him? Here is the Son of God made flesh--have you room for him? Here is he who can forgive all sin--have you room for him? Here is he who can take you up out of the horrible pit and out of the miry clay--have you room for him? Here is he who when he cometh in will never go out again, but abide with you forever to make your heart a heaven of joy and bliss for you--have you room for him?
'Tis all I ask. Your emptiness, your nothingness, your want of feeling, your want of goodness, your want of grace--all these will be but room for him. Have you room for him?
You would think that after years and years of hearing and reciting the story of His coming we would learn from the words "And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn."
There was no room for our Savior then. How often I don't make room for him now. And even as we walk daily through His story, I sometimes find myself distracted by the candle's flame, entranced by the twinkling lights outside my window and I forget, forget that our time of Advent is for making room. Each person in the lineage of Christ has a story not much different than our own: broken, downtrodden, betrayed, the betrayer, prostitute, sinners--all of them.
All of us.
The truth of God becoming man, King becoming babe, Creator becoming creation, Word made flesh, is truth for the lowly, for the stench of the outcast shepherd, for the stench of a sinner. There was no room for Jesus in the palaces, the temples, the fine hotels. The place there was room was a stable, with the least of these-- for the least of these. And it is in our emptiness, our nothingness, our want of feeling, our want of goodness, our want of grace--that there is room for Him.
Your emptiness, your nothingness, your want of feeling, your want of goodness, your want of grace--all these will be but room for him. Have you room for him?
0 comments:
Post a Comment