Christmas 2018 or AD 1?

photo courtesy of United Nations Photo / flickr

From a snippet in the New York Times. Maxine Marron wrote: "We cannot wait to hear about Gary's kindergarten play this year. Two years ago, his school put on "Snow White" with 27 "dwarfs," so that the children could be in the play. Last year, it presented "The Nativity." Joseph came to the inn and knocked on the door. The little boy playing the innkeeper decided to be inventive. When Joseph asked if there was room in the inn, he answered by saying: "You are so lucky. We have just had a cancellation."

As we Christians around the world gather to celebrate the birth of our Lord I wonder how many of us will ponder the words of Luke's story: "And she gave birth to her firstborn son and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn." I think of all those on the other side of the United States in Mexico and other places who this day scratch for food, try to keep warm and hold tight to their little ones. They came from poverty, from places without jobs, from countries where relatives were murdered and their daughters were raped. They came hundreds, maybe thousands of miles to find a place where they would be safe and their children would not only be far from danger. But also have a chance, in their little lives, to discover for themselves what their parents had not been able to do.

There are no mangers in Mexico or in Syria or all those other troubled places where people flee for their lives. When the history of our time is written I wonder if someone will 

ask the question: "No room? No room in the inn? Did not Christians, well-fed and prosperous care for those so desperately in need?" 

Like the little boy in kindergarten wouldn't it be something if we followers of Jesus Christ could open our hearts and lives and pocketbooks and churches and say to all those out there: "You are so lucky. We have just had a cancellation."

"To an open house in the evening
Home shall men come;
To an older place than Eden
And a taller town than Rome;
To the end of the way of the wandering star,
To the things that cannot be and that are,
To the place where God was homeless
And all...are at home."
--G. K. Chesterton

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com