No Room for Him: Rev. Luther Gray (posthumously)

“And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.” -Luke 2:7

The following is an excerpt from the journal of Reverend Luther Gray (Uncle Luke) of Christ’s Sanctified Holy Church.  Date and time unknown.

The town of Bethlehem was crowded because a decree had passed that all the world should be taxed.   It is easy to understand why there was no room at this hotel but knowing who it was knocking at the door that night and what it would have meant to them; it seems they would have made room for them.  If the door manager at the inn could have seen the opportunity of it, if he could have looked in the future to see what joy, what happiness it would have been to him. If he only could have let them in, it would have been the greatest hotel of all. Its name would have lasted through time and outlasted the finest hotels of our day. The Ponce de Leon of St Augustine and any in New York or Chicago. It would have exceeded them all in fame and may have been the largest today. If they would have known who was knocking at the door. The picture of the inn would have been on calendars and walls, and on thousands of Christmas cards. If they had only let Joseph and Mary in that night. But there was no room. What a chance, what an opportunity to become something. To do something worthwhile in life. And they passed it by. A humble manger took the glory and honor that would have been given to the inn. It would have been in the hearts and minds of men and women of the world, yet without this it is gone forever. That opportunity was lost, because there was no room. 

Now my dear friend, what might this mean to you? The Great one has said “Behold I stand at the door and knock.”  Now we may think that it was a pity that they did not make room for Jesus. How about us? Can we make room for him? May we as others have, make room in our house, in our life for Jesus? Or is our life so filled with the cares of this life, that there is no room for him. There are many things that we do that we think are not wrong to do. Our time is all taken up what with no harmful things at all. There just doesn’t seem to be room in our own life for Jesus. What a pity, we are like the inn, and inn keeper. Missing the chance of a lifetime by not letting Jesus in. That he may be formed anew in our lives. Behold, what we are missing no human tongue can tell.  Nothing but eternity can know all that we are missing. It is not what we are doing, but rather what we are not doing that counts against us. We take time to get up, to get to work. We take time to eat, and some time to sleep. We take time to go to town and do shopping. We take time to wash our car. We take time to build and to plant. Time to fish and hunt. We take time to go out to eat. We take time to talk with one another. Yet, no time to talk with Jesus. All these things may fill the house. All these things take up all our time; and we will not have any room for Jesus of Nazareth.