Today’s find: Making room

Things got a little tight in our family room yesterday.

Company was coming. And so some rearranging was required – dining room chairs uprooted and circled ‘round in the family room … in order to accommodate the dozen-plus women who were about to gather at our place for their annual Christmas Cookie Exchange.

It kicked off what promises to be a Big Week of entertaining at our place, the first of three or four gatherings (depending on how you count) that – God-willing – are set to take place under our brand-new roof to help us mark the birth of the baby Jesus.

Christmas: An in-breaking of the Holy One that’s too big, too momentous, to be contained in a single intimate celebration. We seem to find it necessary, even heart-expanding, to make room for more. 

More Jesus. 

More Emmanuel, God-With-Us.

I hope that’s at least part of what’s going on … when we fling open our doors to the company that’s coming during this holy season. In my case yesterday, I was on the periphery for a gals-only event. Once the family room set-up was done, I was pretty much banished to the Man Cave while Gerri and her college and high school friends made merry overhead.

In the moment, it felt much like a Fourth Week of Advent experience: “Mary” and “Elizabeth” greeting each other with joy … while I made like “John the Baptist in-utero,” unseen but still very much aware of the presence of the Spirit that permeated the gaggling gals’ holiday visitation.

Yes, Christmas is coming, bringing with it the power to brighten even the shortest day of the year.

But it’s important to make room in our hearts for this coming, isn’t it? When we fling open our doors, it’s not just the kinfolk we welcome. Not just our friends. It’s them, and the Christ-in-them. Emmanuel comes, if we remember to make room for Him. It’s just like Elizabeth promises her cousin Mary:

Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled.

O Wisdom 
Lord and Ruler 
Root of Jesse 
Key of David 
Rising Sun 
King of the Nations 
Emmanuel 
Come, Lord Jesus

Let us pause now…to recall that we are in the presence of the Holy & Merciful One.

IHS