No Place For It’s King

 

There is a haunting song by Casting Crowns that goes like this, “Oh Bethlehem, what you have missed while you were sleeping

For God became a man and stepped into your world today

Oh Bethlehem, you will go down in history

As a city with no room for its King.” 

(While You Were Sleeping, Casting Crowns)

For indeed there was no room for Mary, Joseph, and the Baby Jesus at the Inn or houses, which really shows how hard the hearts of people in Bethlehem truly were! A woman is pregnant and needs a place to give birth and no one chooses to give up their room or perhaps squeeze in the Holy Family?! What this tells us is how dead the religion of Hebrews was, that oh they kept Sabbath and food laws, but a Pregnant Jewish Woman needs to give birth and they direct her to a stable?! 

Is the Church not like that today? Have we not become like Bethlehem were we keep the Sabbath and do our Christian rituals while women are in our streets like Mary needing help? Have we become as deaf as Bethlehem, with our “form of godliness (acting religious), that its devoid of its power,” (2 Timothy 3:5)? The People of Bethlehem serve as reminder, they were people of David, a man said to be after God’s own heart and they showed cold hearts to that same God in the flesh! What a terrible fall! To be proud of your religious progeny and to have no living faith, as the apostle Jamss warns, “If a brother or sister [in Christ] is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead..” (James 2:15-17). 

Many of our cities in the world are becoming Bethlehems, with no place for Christ Jesus, and likewise the hearts of many Christians have gone cold, “And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold,” (Matthew 24:12), but our Lord warns us to stir that love back to life! “But I have this complaint against you. You don’t love me or each other as you did at first! Look how far you have fallen! Turn back to me and do the works you did at first. If you don’t repent, I will come and remove your lampstand from its place among the churches.” (Revelation 2:4-5). If we continue like this, when Jesus returns he will find no place among us, our coldness matching the People of Bethlehem as it was at His First Coming, closing Him out. 

This Christmas it is imperative we do more than trim trees, sing carols, and give gifts. The very fate of the Church is at hand, if we persist in being cold, of having no room in our inns for others, we reject Christ! For Christ is in others, remeber every person who believes in Jesus has Christ in them, “Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him,” (John 14:24), “To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory,” (Colossians 1:27), “All who declare that Jesus is the Son of God have God living in them, and they live in God,” (1 John 4:15) and He said, “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in,  I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’ “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’

“He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’ “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.” (Matthew 25:31-46). 

We don’t just need to get ready for Christ’s Second Coming, Christ is already here in people who are suffering in cold and we won’t even give them a Stable! How pathetic! Brothers and Sisters in Christ are struggling in their congregations while that said congregation sends money to foriegners so they can say “we helped Africa,” “we helped Ukraine,” and etc; when your own need succor! First help the faithful Christians in your midst, then help those afar! 

 I am worried about the sad state the Church is in. Oh we pay three figure salaries to pastors and worship teams, while in the church are people who cannot afford food, taxes, and etc due to the economic times and traumas in their lives. A lot of holy families will be in stables this year, losing homes and living in cars. Will we be as cold as Bethlehem was to Christ? Are we Christians in name only? Have we become no better than dead religion? Ponder that this Xmas. 

Finally, “Your soul is in your keeping alone, even though those who presume to play you be kings or men of power. When you stand before God, you cannot say, "But I was told by others to do thus," or that virtue was not convenient at the time. This will not suffice. Remember that.” (King Baldwin IV, Kingdom of Heaven 2005)