Will We Make Room, or Not?

 

December 3^rd 2010
Lectionary Reading: Hebrews 10:11-25

Christmas Hymn of the Day – "Thou Didst Leave Thy Throne" – Author: Emily E.S. Elliott
Based on Luke 2:7

And she brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling cloths, and laid Him in a manger,
because there was no room for them in the inn. (NKJ)

Thou didst leave Thy throne and Thy kingly crown
When Thou camest to earth for me,
But in Bethlehem's home there was found no room
For Thy Holy Nativity. (Refrain)

Heaven's arches rang when the angels sang
Proclaiming Thy royal degree;
But in lowly birth didst Thou come to earth,
And in meek humility. (Refrain)

The foxes found rest and the birds their nest
In the shade of the forest tree;
But Thy couch was the sod, O Thou Son of God,
In the Desert of Galilee. (Refrain)

Thou camest, O Lord, with the Living Word
That should set Thy people free;
But with mocking scorn and with crown of thorn,
They bore Thee to Calvary. (Refrain)

When the heavens shall ring and the angels sing,
At Thy coming to victory,
Let Thy voice call me home saying, "Yet there is room,
There is room at my side for thee." (Final Refrain)

Refrain: O come to my heart, Lord Jesus, there is room in my heart for Thee."

Final Refrain: And my heart shall rejoice, Lord Jesus, when Thou comest and callest for me."

Meditation - "Will We Make Room?

This hymn was written by a 19^th Century woman writer, Emily Elizabeth Elliott. This is a hymn that quite often finds its way into collections of Advent hymns, and it is a hymn that has been one of my personal favorites for as long as I can remember. I remember well learning it in the choir at Druid Hills United Methodist Church when I was a young teenager. That there could be room at the side of the Savior for even me is something that I found completely awe-inspiring and very comforting even at that young age. I depend on its truth even more completely as I grow older! It is actually a hymn for all seasons, not just Advent, but it is quite appropriate for Advent!

Miss Elliott was the editor of a little magazine called "The Church Missionary Juvenile Instructor", and she wrote scores of poems for it. Very few of her verses survived except this one which is described by Cecil Northcutt in his book, Hymns We Love:Stories of the Hundred Most Popular Hymns as "pure gold". The hymn details the whole life of Christ, right on up to His death on the cross of Calvary.

Emily Elizabeth Elliott was born at Brighton, England, on July 22, 1836. She was, for all of her life, associated with the evangelical
faction of the Anglican Church, and spent her life working in the Rescue Missions and Sunday Schools in her area.
Emily was a niece of Charlotte Elliott who wrote Just As I Am.

This particular hymn was written for the private use of her choir and for the school children of her father's church, St. Mark's at Brighton, England. Emily wrote it for the purpose of teaching young children the truths of the Advent and Nativity seasons, using striking and vivid contrasts to make her points in each of the five verses. She took as her text for the hymn a vaunting passage in the Gospel of Luke that says, ". . . but there was no room for them in the inn." (Luke 2:7)

Verse 1speaks of Heaven's throne and crown, but no room in Bethlehem
Verse 2 lifts up Heaven's royal degree, but earth's great humiliation
Verse 3 tells us that Earth's creatures have homes but for Jesus, home was the desert
Verse 4 reminds us He came to bring redemption and salvation, but we gave Him Calvary
Finally, in Verse 5, death is swallowed up in victory, as she writes, in a reverse of the contrast: "Heaven's arches will ring again when He comes for His Second Advent."

The hymn, written in 1864, expresses the riches of glory in the heavenly home, which Jesus left. In the first verse we find an account of Jesus' selflessness in leaving such a home, throne, and kingly crown to be born the humblest of men in a borrowed stable in Bethlehem. The second verse emphasizes the music of the choirs of angels announcing His birth to simple shepherds on the hillside. Christ's homelessness compared to the creatures of the world is the focus of the third verse. The fourth verse emphasizes the "mocking scorn" which greeted Christ's gift of life to men, and the last verse stresses the ultimate victory of Christ and the room there must be for Him in every human heart that wishes to share in His ultimate victory.

The hymn is different from the usual Christmas songs because its focus reaches beyond His birth and includes His whole life on earth, including His suffering and death and His ultimate triumph at His Second Advent. The refrain to the verses requires that we make a response – that we make "room" for Him in our hearts.

Making room for Him in our hearts often requires us to do some deep soul-searching in order to find those things that crowd Him out. We know that we get "busy" and fail to make time for the most important things in our lives all too often. It is even possible to become so busy "going about doing good" that we crowd out the person in whose Name we are laboring! We must be on constant guard that our good works reflect the Lord Jesus Christ and not ourselves.

Also, making room for Him in our hearts requires us to look closely at the very contrasts that are so readily apparent in this simple children's hymn. We all love our homes, and we have invested considerable amounts of our resources in them - - - our time, certainly our money, our creativity, and so much else - - - to make them our "castles". Yet nothing that the mind of human beings can conceive and produce compares with the glory that Jesus left to come to earth for us. He made a selfless sacrifice of home, throne and crown to come to earth as a Baby, born in a crude, borrowed stable, surrounded by animals and their smells and noises, and He did so willingly and eager to do His Father's bidding and will. Would we leave our homes for someone else as He did? If so, for whom? What would have to happen in your life or in mine to make us willing to do such a thing as this that the world would undoubtedly find "crazy".

When Jesus arrived on the earth, His coming was announced by angels to simple shepherds watching on a hillside near Bethlehem. They were frightened, confused, and no doubt murmured among themselves about what the signs of the night might mean. They, like all others who awaited the coming of God's promised Messiah, probably could not conceive of the birth of a King being announced in such a way. Why, surely such a One would arrive in a white coach, drawn by a team of matched thoroughbred horses, and accompanied by all sorts of heraldry! No way the angels could be right about this one, or could they?

I am not a big fan of talk shows. Nevertheless, I still remember watching a Sally Jessy Raphael show about women who were afraid to show their faces in public, for various reasons – some because of terrible abuse and others because of automobile accidents that left them horribly disfigured. Not one of the women on her show had failed to experience something of "man's inhumanity to man" because of their disfigurement. People treated them horribly when they went out in public without disguises or heavy makeup. One of the women had had her throat cut by an irate ex-boyfriend, and not only couldn't speak above a whisper, but couldn't swallow well, and had to keep "spitting" into a cup. While she was on the plane flying to New York to appear on this show where Sally was going to attempt to help all of these women find the courage to appear in public, the woman seated next to her on the plane asked the flight attendant to change her seat because the woman's behavior was "annoying".

We hurt each other all the time with our attitudes. I came away from this Sally show thinking about how we treat those among us who are "different" in any way - - - by appearance, by religion, by race, by any number of other criteria, and I thought particularly about how we view the "homeless" among us, and yet Jesus chose to leave the splendor of Heaven and to be homeless in order to save us from our sinfulness. There is a lesson here for us if we will but learn it! We read in the hymn text that even the foxes found rest in their dens and the birds in their nests, but Jesus was left to a cow's feeding trough - - - a rough manger, and that not even His own!

We have so many ways to crowd Jesus out of our hearts and our lives. How sad we must make the Father who loved His world so much that He gave His only Son to die on the Cross that we might be forever at His side. No matter how crowded it gets, we are assured that there will always be room at HIS side for us when He comes to reclaim His saints. What in your life, and in my life, pushes Christ aside? How can we eliminate all that would separate us from Him? Isn't Advent a good time to look at our lives, our attitudes, and ourselves and make some changes? Someone has said "the unexamined life is not worth living." Let's make the time this Advent to do just that - - - to examine our lives!

Prayer - Lord, you came to earth in the lowliest of births to save us from our sins and to claim us for your own. Forgive us when the cry of our hearts is, "no room in the inn", instead of "Even so, Lord Jesus, quickly come". We thank you that nothing in this world can separate us from the Father, and we beg for the courage to remove any and all impediments to our welcoming You with open hearts and open arms. Bless us with your Presence in our midst for we pray in your blessed name. Amen ~

Activity - Tie a wreath with a big red bow to the grill of your car for the holiday season.