Make Room for Jesus: Putting Christ Back Into Christmas

Christmas is a time of great celebration. We celebrate the fact that our Creator and God, in his great love for us, chose to come to earth as a real human being, to be closer to us, to identify with us and to save the human project from the devastating consequences of sin. We desperately wanted this. We wanted God to feel our pain and to understand our struggles with sin. And God responded. But strangely, instead of us rejoicing that Immanuel has come to our rescue, we locked him out. We made no room for him in the inn, relegating him to the manger or unwanted space in our lives. No room for God! Not then and still not today.

This leads to the question: Why is it that humanity resists God? How can we explain the contradiction of creation wanting its Creator and then wanting nothing to do with him? How can we long for him who is the Desire of nations and when he is offered to us we reject him? And more relevant to this season, why is it that we bounce Jesus out of his own birthday party? Why do we replace the honored guest of Christmas with Santa Claus, reindeer, and everything else but Jesus?