Considering the way most Christians traverse this sacred season, I suspect that in our privately casted Christmas pageants, the character most of us play best is not the Gloria angels, they who released Heaven's news to a gaggle of odiferous shepherds.
Neither do we emulate the shepherds themselves, gasping, gaping, galloping to the manger bed of newborn God. Not the majestic travel-raw magi, bearing gifts beyond cost. Not even Joseph, into whose calloused palms dropped the Promise of the Ages, him all crusted with afterbirth and dewy with heaven's tears. And especially not Mary, she a child, God-saddled with tomorrow's shadow, with wonder, sorrow and spear to the heart.
Not any of those. I suspect the grinchy innkeepers, who had no room, fit most of us best. No. I know so. And it hurts.
I LOVE that little Lord Jesus, asleep on the hay. I know who he was. Isaiah prophesied it. "For unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given. And the government shall be upon his shoulders. And he shall be called Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace." (9:6)
"What does that mean, Nana? 'Let every heart prepare HIS room'?" one of the grandbeans begged to know the other day, listening to me sing "Joy to the World." She stopped me. Right at, "Let every heart prepare him room."
In that moment I had no answer.
I know how to prepare a sandwich. A wall for painting, a garden for seeding, a child for sleeping, a husband for loving. But HOW, at Christmastime (this mad dash to a false finish line) does one prepare a heart for Jesus? With a gushing of sentiment, a harried turn around the hamster wheel, a basket of bills, and great guilt in the heart? A schedule so congested that God is shoved aside?
Oh, my inescapable, all-surrounding Lord, all bloody and bawling on a cold night in a barn. Child, I must a confession make: I have not prepared your room. I have given you my gifts, but shut you out. Service, but not with a smile. I read your Word, yet rushing renders it cracker dry. I pray, but I am empty of you.
I don't know how. I never intend it. It just happens, this witless wandering through an inner wilderness at Christmas. I have been here before. And I have left before, wiser than on entry, but never wise enough.
Repentance, humility, yearning and sharing. These are the arteries of a prepared heart; a God-ready room. I know that. Yet I stumble over decorations and donations, gift lists and guests. Over too many commitments and too few holy moments. Over sales flyers and commercials. Not every year, but too often.
Holy Christ, God-aimed, Mary-born, forgive.
