This Christmas day, I would like to share a story I once heard a pastor share. As in most school Christmas plays, a particular school had also decided to do the nativity scene surrounding the birth of Jesus. But right on the day of the play, the boy who was to play the inn-keeper could not come for some reason. So, the teachers of the school made a prompt decision to give the role of the inn-keeper to a 6-year old boy, who was also incidentally the Principal’s son. And so they would dress this 6-year old with the right attire and makeup and then they would give him the line to respond with when Joseph and Mary would inquire at the inn. The line was: “No, there is no room here.” Probably the simplest of all the lines in the entire play. Come the time of the nativity play in the Christmas celebrations, every other kid is managing to flawlessly repeat their lines from memory and the play rolls on without breaking a sweat. Behold, as the play rolls forward and comes to the scene with Jesus’s parents and the inn-keeper. The question is posed to the 6-year old inn-keeper and rings around in the ears of the audience, “Is there room at the inn?” Everyone patiently awaits the quite familiar response. But alas, this 6-year old remains mum. The audience burst out a laugh in amusement. The kid playing Joseph is getting perplexed, he starts to repeat the question again wanting to make sure the 6-year old heard it well the first time. The teachers from behind the curtains are tensely whispering and asking the boy to say, “No, there is no room here!” The 6-year old feels overwhelmed, tears start rolling down his eyes. The crowd is now in a compassionate silence. The teachers are contemplating cutting the play short and drawing the curtains. And right at this moment of decisions threatening to boil over, this 6-year old inn-keeper blurts out: “There is no room at the inn, but there is room in my home.”

You see, this 6-year old wasn’t being overwhelmed by the glaring stage lights, the audience, the weight of the moment he was in. Rather he was overwhelmed at the very prospect of saying ‘no’ to Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Maybe this Christmas, you find that you haven’t still said your ‘yes’ to Christ. Maybe like the audience, your response and reaction to this question has been a familiar ‘no.’ Maybe like the whispers of the teachers from behind the curtains, your intellect or past-experiences are whispering to you to reject Christ. Or maybe like this little 6-year old, deep-down the voice of your own conscience is asking you to respond; to say ‘yes’ to Christ today. You stand to lose nothing, but yet gain everything by making this one decision today. Life on this earth maybe short but your ‘yes’ or ‘no’ here echoes into eternity.

Would you say your ‘yes’ to Christ today? If so, you are welcome to make this prayer with us.

Jesus is the reason for the season. MERRY CHRISTMAS from the PrayerSpring family!