Or, Christmas has invaded.
We are living in a rental right now. We’re in a duplex that’s half the size of our previous house and not at all as nice. It’s temporary, but less temporary than we thought it would be when we moved in.
This is our second Christmas in this home, and so I knew the mental and emotional prep work I had to do.
My husband took the kids to go find and cut down a tree in the state forrest, and when they came back with a full-sized tree, we moved furniture around and made room for it.
Now, when you walk in the door, you’re confronted face-to-face with the tree. There it is. Welcome! When you sit on either couch, the tree is your friend, right there. It dominates the space. You have to walk around it to get to the door. It encroaches on life.
And this is no problem. Really, it’s an excellent visible metaphor for Christmas.
When Jesus comes into a life, He invades. He doesn’t stay in a nice corner where there’s room to get around Him. When He came to this earth, it looked at first as if He’d be insignificant, just a baby in a poor family on the edges of society.
And look at the earth now. He has come. He is coming.
Prepare Him room.
Let Christmas dominate the house, the schedules. Let it overturn tables, making a mess in your comfortable, self-profitable life.
Christmas offers us a chance to die to our comfort zones, our pet boundaries, our meager selves. Celebration raises us back up, beyond ourselves, into a taste of glory. Get caught up in it.
The pile of presents grows in our bedroom, the only place with available floor space for a new collection. It was crowded in here and now it’s just more so.
Just like God’s blessings, God’s gifts, are crowded into my life such that there’s not an untouched nook or cranny that they aren’t evident.
What an appropriate way to celebrate and prepare for Christmas.
He comes to make His blessing flow. He cannot be contained in a decorative corner, dashed like a few sprinkles on our self-centered lives, or made to fit our schedules.
Joy! The King has come!
Who cares about petty preferences or insufficient spaces or budgets?
Let earth receive her King!