No Vacancy

Those words, “There was no room for them in the inn,” remind me of an experience my family had several years ago. We had been traveling all day, and I was trying to find a motel where we could spend the night. It was getting late, and the children were tired and fidgety. As we drove along the highway, our hopes were dashed time and again by the sight of NO VACANCY signs. As a father, responsible for the well-being of my family, I was frustrated and discouraged. But when I though of Mary and Joseph, how much worse it must have been when they arrived in Bethlehem and found no rooms available! I can imagine Joseph pleading with he manager of this inn, telling him of Mary’s condition and their desperate need for a suitable place where she could give birth to her child. Luke tells us that “there was no room for them in the inn,” and that when Mary gave birth to Jesus she “wrapped Him in swaddling clothes, and laid Him in a manger.”

Today, nearly 20 centuries later, millions of people have no room for Jesus. Although they participate enthusiastically in the festivities of the Christmas season, they keep Him out of their lives. The “NO VACANCY” sign is there.

-Sermons Illustrated November/December 1988


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The land of Persia was once ruled by a wise and beloved Shah who cared greatly for his people and desired only what was best for them. One day he disguised himself as a poor man and went to visit the public baths. The water for the baths was heated by a furnace in the cellar so the Shah made his way to the dark place to sit with the man who tended the fire. The two men shared the coarse food, and the Shah befriended him in his loneliness. Day after day the ruler went to visit the man. The worker became attached to this stranger because he “came where he was.” One day the Shah revealed his true identity, and he expected the man to ask him for a gift. Instead, he looked long into his leader’s face and with love and wonder in his voice said, “You left your palace and your glory to sit with me in this dark place, to eat my coarse food, and to care about what happens to me. On others you may bestow rich gifts, but to me you have given yourself!”

As we think of what our Lord has done for us, we can echo that fire tender’s sentiments. Oh, what a step our Lord took – from heaven to earth, from the worship of angels to the mocking of cruel men, from glory to humiliation!

-Sermons Illustrated November/December 1988

 


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In the early 19th century, a war-weary world was anxiously watching the march of Napoleon. All the while babies were being born. In 1809, midway between the battles of Trafalgar and Waterloo, William E. Gladstone was born in Liverpool; Alfred, Lord Tennyson in Summersby, England: Oliver Wendell Holmes in Boston; Felix Mendelssohn in Hamburg, Germany; and Abraham Lincoln in Hodgenville, Kentucky. People’s minds were occupied with battles, not babies. Yet 175 year later, is there the slightest doubt about the greater contribution to history – those battles or those babies?

So it was with the birth of Jesus. The Bethlehem crowds had no inkling that the infinite Son of God was asleep in their little town. Only a few shepherds came to see Him, and they left glorifying God.

-Sermons Illustrated November/December 1988


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How is this for
a description of Jesus’ incarnation?

“He who never
began to be, but eternally existed, and who continues to be what he eternally
was, began to be what he eternally was not.”

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Sermon’s Illustrated


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