“And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.”  Luke 2:7 ESV

I can almost see the looks of disappointment on their faces.  I imagine their eyes meet in mutual weariness, bone tired from travel.  Do deep sighs escape their mouths as they turn from the place of comfort and rest?  Joseph and Mary, God’s faithful chosen, move on only to find repose in a barn.  And amongst the smelly, the dirty, and the most un-royal, our King Jesus came to us.  A baby born to save the world, he lays in a feeding trough reserved for an animal.

From the very beginning, Jesus was not a stranger to “mess.”  Surrounded by the stench of a stable, he entered into this very broken world.  His humble beginning shows us he doesn’t shy away from imperfection; He inhabits imperfection.  Could we then prepare him room in our own messy hearts?  He is glad to enter in and he is not offended.  For we are the ones he came to save.

The word “inn” is translated to the Greek word “kataluma.”  Kataluma refers to a lodging-place, or a guest room.  It comes from the Greek word “kataluo,” which means a dissolution, or the breaking up of a journey.  Specifically, the figurative expression states kataluo “originates in the circumstance that, to put up for the night, the straps and packs of the beasts of burden are unbound and taken off; the traveler’s garments, tied up when he is on the journey, are loosed at its end.” (Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance)

My friends, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that there was no room in the very place that became the symbol for what Jesus came to do.  He came to unbind our burdens.  He came to remove the yoke of slavery to sin (Galatians 5:1).  He came to take the weight off of our shoulders.  He came to loose the knots and break the chains of our wrong-doing and the wrongs done to us by others.  He came and we are no longer tied down, but “free indeed.”  And he takes those tired and dirty, threadbare and worn garments and exchanges them for robes of righteousness.

So take a deep breath-you’re forgiven.  Take a deep breath-you’re free.  Take a deep breath-you have nothing to worry about.  

And the weary world rejoices.