One response was given by the innkeeper when Mary and Joseph wanted to find a room where the Child could be born. The innkeeper was not hostile; he was not opposed to them, but his inn was crowded; his hands were full; his mind was preoccupied. This is the answer that millions are giving today. Like a Bethlehem innkeeper, they cannot find room for Christ. All the accommodations in their hearts are already taken up by other crowding interests. Their response is not atheism. It is not defiance. It is preoccupation and the feeling of being able to get on reasonably well without Christianity.
Christmas Eve
Grace Noll Crowell
Whatever else be lost among the years, Let us keep Christmas still a shining thing: Whatever doubts assail us, or what fears, Let us hold close one day, remembering its poignant meaning for the hearts of men. Let us get back our childlike faith again.
Ernest Salmond
There is doubt, fear, anger, frustration, confusion about all that is going on. Trying to figure out what is true what is false, who is lying and who isn’t. I think we can all agree it is a mess. Have you ever been in a barn this time of year, it is always a mess, you know what I mean. Yet it was in a barn that God chose to have His Son born, right in the middle of that mess. The world of Jesus’s day was a mess just like ours is today and yet Jesus stepped right into the middle of it. He came to bring hope, peace, love, forgiveness, redemption, He came to be a light in the darkness.
Rev. Richard J. Fairchild
Eternal God, this holy night is radiant with the brilliance of your one true light. May that light illuminate our hearts and shine in our words and deeds. May the hope, the peace, the joy, and the love represented by the birth in Bethlehem this night fill our lives and become part of all that we say and do. May we share the divine life of your son Jesus Christ, even as he humbled himself to share our humanity. Amen.