Perhaps you have seen commercials advertising a new coke flavor. One begins with a dinosaur taking a drink of coke and then saying, “Wow! This new Coke Zero Sugar, is it the best coke ever? After a series of competing responses, (yes, no, yes, yes, no) the meteor says, “I need to try it first.” Each of the commercials for Coke Zero Sugar conclude with this line, “I need to try it first.” I get it. It’s a new slant on the line, “try it, you’ll like it.”

Finding a new soft drink to enjoy is wonderful, I guess. If we could only interest people as easily in the awesome wonder of knowing Jesus as Lord and Savior. The Psalmist sort of kind of says the same thing.  “Taste and see that the Lord is good; how blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him! (Psalm 34:8).

Jesus begins one parable saying, “Blessed is he who shall eat bread in the kingdom of God!” (Luke 24:15-24).  The story is about a man who provided a great supper and invited many. However, many of them had excuses for not accepting his invitation. The parable concludes with Jesus saying, “None of those who were invited shall taste my supper.” Those who have rejected Jesus, will not enjoy the celebration feast with Him in heaven.

Peter wrote these words for us. “Therefore, laying aside all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy and all evil speaking, as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious.” (1 Peter 2:1-3). Those who take a moment to receive the bread from heaven, the water of life, and a taste of grace, are those who respond to Jesus with yes! Yes! Yes!

One of the sweetest and at the same time one of the saddest verses in our Bible is Luke 2:7. “And she brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling cloths, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.” The sweetest part of that is of course the beautiful scene of God entering our world as a human. The saddest part is the words “no room.”

No room for Jesus. I wonder how many homes on Christmas day had no room for Him. Our Christmas celebrations tend to be 99% about us and 1% about Him. We stop by the manger to gaze at the baby and then move on to our festivities and frivolities. No room. No room in our Christmas celebrations and no room in our day-to-day work, leisure, and life. Maybe Luke misspelled the last word of that verse. He meant to say, “there was no room in the end.” At the end of it all, we have no room for Him.

It is sad, isn’t it? It is sad how little time we have for Jesus in our daily life. No room. No room for devotion. No room for prayer. No room for worship. No room to see Him standing near by waiting for our attention. We have relegated Jesus to a small place outside of our routines where we are not disturbed by Him or bothered by His cry for attention. We are satisfied with the meager provision of space we have allowed for Him. We have treated Him as interference instead of Immanuel. We have treated Him as transient instead of Savior. We have treated Him as common instead of King.

Is there room? Can we move Jesus from outside in the stable into the center of our home? Can we invite Him into our lives as Master, Lord, Savior, and King? Can we honor him as did the angels, shepherds, and wise men? Can we declare that Jesus birth was not the end but the beginning? Our Savior has come. Let us adore Him now and forever. Amen.