Room for the Christ-Child?

As I write, November is opening its door a crack onto history’s stage, but all around us the doors of malls and stores are wide open for Christmas. The commercial and secular world is reaching out to grasp Christmas with expectation.

But what kind of Christmas? A Christmas of temporal possessions, of material gain, and perhaps of subsequent disillusionment. At best, a Christmas of human philanthropy.

Room lacking

Ironically, society’s Christmas appears to have room for every gadget and buyer except the living Christ Himself. For the Christ-child, there is no room. No room for what He represents. No room for what He has done. No room for who He is. No room for His free gift of grace.

Room for feasting, but not for Jesus as the Bread of Life! Room for multicolored lights, but not for Jesus as the Star of Jacob and the Son of Righteousness! Room for a living room tree, but no room for the living Tree of Life whose leaves are given for the healing of the nations! Room for exchange of human wishes by voice and card, but not for heaven’s personally addressed Christmas message: “Unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord” (Lk. 2:11)! Room for multiple gift-giving and giftreceiving but not for God’s unspeakable Gift — the Christ-child of Bethlehem!

But let’s move beyond the secularized commercial world. As in all else, when we point one finger at others, we point three at ourselves. Are not we who have heard the gospel in all its clearness as the gracious gift of God Triune triply guilty when we have no room for the Christ of Christmas?

By nature, we are no better than the world around us. Nor are we more open for the reception of Jesus than was the world into which the Child was born: “And she brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling clothes, and laid Him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn” (Lk. 2:7).

No room for theml There was room for the rich traveler, but not for poor Joseph and Mary, despite her being “great with child.”

Oh, my friends, how deeply symbolic the innkeeper’s rejection of the Christ-child is of the enmity and rejection of Jesus in our hearts by nature! How dead we are in trespasses and sin — so dead that we have no room for the Prince of Life!

Have we ever seen our blindness and poverty as culminating in our lack of room for Jesus? Here total depravity climaxes in stark unbelief: No room for Jesus! No room for the one thing needful! No room for the prime purpose and meaning of life!

No room for the unveiling in Christmas of the world’s greatest miracle and mystery! No room for the Messiah who is God’s unspeakable gospel tidings! No room for the Prince of glory as a Baby in a manger! No room for the Almighty as a little Child! No room for the Immortal Son clothed with the rags of mortality!

Dear reader, given our desperate need for Jesus by nature, is not this truth most staggering: no room for Jesus Christ, the only Savior?

Surely, Rev. Ledeboer was right when he noted that our greatest misery is ignorance of our misery. Unrecognized ignorance and unrealized blindness lie at the heart of our depravity.

Total depravity: has it become total reality for us?

Room formed

Paradoxically, through becoming aware of our lack of room for Jesus, spiritual room is formed in the inn of our hearts by the saving operations of the Holy Spirit. Our nature defiantly posts “NO VACANCY” signs for Jesus, but free grace changes our signs to “FULL VACANCY.” By nature we have room for everything and everyone except Jesus, but the Spirit instructs that we need nothing and no one else than Jesus.

By convicting us of sin, actual and original, the Holy Spirit leads us to need the Christ-child as sole Deliverer. He makes room for both God’s promise and His Bethlehem Child by stripping all grounds of self-salvation away from us — prayers, religion, piety, reformation, humility, love, and repentance inclusive.

Our nature defiantly posts “NO VACANCY” signs for Jesus, but free grace changes our signs to “FULL VACANCY.”

The Spirit teaches us that Jesus is needed on all fronts. For guilt, there is Christ’s reconciling blood. For the law, Christ is Law-fulfiller and Curse-bearer. For conscience, Christ is both Victor and victory, for there is no condemnation to those in Christ Jesus (Rom. 8:1). For God’s attributes, righteousness and peace are met together in Him (Ps. 85:10). For punishment, Christ’s passive obedience is sufficient for the sins of a whole world and efficient for the sins of all His elect. For death, hell, and grave, Christ has the keys in His hand (Rev. 1:18).

In short, the Holy Spirit forms within us the Advent cry which, in God’s ripe hour of love, gives birth to Christmas realization: “Give me Jesus, else I die.” Then our empty hearts may be filled with the benefits and Person of Jesus to the praise of God’s one-sided, sovereign work of free grace.

Room filled

True believer, you know that only Jesus Christ can and does fill the empty cup of your sin-stained, condemnable heart. Oh, unforgettable hour it was when your cup overflowed as your heart first glimpsed the fullness of a poor Infant born for poor sinners! Unforgettable hour when Christ was first revealed as a complete meriting and applying Savior who cried out on Calvary, “It is finished!” And was it not an unforgettable hour when you may have been given to experience with Martin Luther that the vital reality of all true religion lies in its personal pronouns? Did you not then stagger beneath amazing grace speaking to your soul with power: “My son, my daughter, thy sins be forgiven thee.... Unto you is born in the city of David, a Savior.... I am thy salvation....”?

Oh, the preciousness of an empty heart being filled with Jesus Christ is unspeakable! For the self-emptied, He is altogether lovely, the Chief among ten thousand, white and ruddy.

And He is altogether sufficient. He “full-fills” your every need, child of God. He is your Refuge and Strength, a very present help in trouble (Ps. 46:1). In Him, you have everything you need for time and eternity.

In Christ you are filled with the salvation of God, for He is the essence of all covenantal blessings. In Him dwells divine fulness. He is the treasury of grace’s all-sufficiency.

In Christ your empty heart may be filled with:

a salvation that can never be thwarted,

a righteousness that can never be tarnished,

a title that can never be clouded,

a judgment that can never be repeated,

a justification that can never be reversed,

a position that can never be invalidated,

a seal that can never be violated,

an inheritance that can never be annulled,

a wealth that can never be depleted,

a bank that can never be destroyed,

a peace that can never be fathomed,

a love that can never be abated,

a grace that can never be arrested,

a strength that can never be exhausted,

a forgiveness that can never be rescinded,

an access that can never be discontinued,

a comfort that can never be scrapped,

an Intercessor who can never be disqualified,

a Victor who can never be vanquished,

a resurrection that can never be hindered,

a hope that can never be disappointed,

a glory that can never be dimmed!

Yes, Christ is all. Christ is all in the Father’s vision. Christ is all in Scripture’s pages. Christ is all in the soul’s desire. Christ is all in the heart’s experience. Christ is all in the midnight of sin. Christ is all in salvation’s dawning light and noon-day sun. Christ is all in free, sovereign, atoning grace.

We are too big in ourselves when we do well, and too little in Christ in our failings.

Would to God the cups of our hearts were filled with Jesus Christ! Would to God we could always say with the psalmist, “My cup runneth over”!

Room continually filled

Yes, true believer, this is your desire. You yearn to learn the art of retaining an over- and ever-flowing cup of divine grace in the face of Jesus Christ. For so often, your spiritual life lies between an empty cup of need and a full cup of blessing. Too often you feel like a half cup of lukewarm coffee — neither cold nor hot, neither empty nor full. “How,” you ask, “may I retain by grace an overflowing cup?”

Allow me to provide you with four directives:

First, beg for grace to keep your cup upright, close to the fountain; yes, directly under Jehovah’s ever-bubbling stream in Christ Jesus. Refuse to turn from the living waters of Christ to the broken cisterns of self. Seek grace to meditate much on the Triune God of grace: Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Search the Scriptures to ascertain what each has performed for the salvation of sinners such as you.

Meditate much on the perfect nature and glorious majesty of the Almighty Father as the ultimate Author of Christmas and Giver of His Son. Reflect on the availability of free access to Him at all times and in all conditions through the Christ-child. Consider that every moment His providence is engaged, for Christ’s sake, in ordering even your darkest, most mysterious steps in the paths of His wisdom, truth and love—ruling and overruling all events for your good. By grace, your cup shall ever-/over-flow.

Meditate much on God the Son condescending for your salvation to become your Elder Brother — bone of your bone, flesh of your flesh, like unto you in all things, sin excepted. Consider Him as an infant, a child, a youth, increasing in wisdom and stature — as a man, poor and homeless, hungering and thirsting weeping and weary, tempted and afflicted, despised and buffeted, bleeding and dying buried and rising again from the dead, interceding continually and anticipating a glorious return...and all this for the benefit of sinners such as you! Think of Him as Prophet, teaching and enlightening you irresistibly and persuasively. Think of Him as Priest, atoning for your sins, redeeming your whole person, sympathizing with your sorrows, interceding for your shortcomings. Think of Him as King, reigning over you in love, and guiding you so firmly yet tenderly. Meditate on the unfading beauty of His benefits, natures, states, and superlative Person.... Oh, believer, is not the Christ-child precious? Seek grace to know Him as your Deliverer, Redeemer, Friend, Lord, and nearest Kinsman, and your cup shall ever-/over-flow.

Consider, too, the Spirit of Christ. Is He not the Author of the new birth, the Giver of spiritual life, the Quickener of the dead, the Sustainer of the living, the Teacher of the ignorant, the Baptizer of the elect, and the Intercessor in the saints? Is He not called the Spirit of life and love, of truth and judgment, of prophecy and promise, of wisdom and revelation, of counsel and might, of faith and holiness, of grace and supplications, of glory and Cod? Is He not the free Spirit who upholds you, the good Spirit who leads you, the Holy Spirit who sanctifies you? Is He not, for the sake of Bethlehem’s Christ-child, the Searcher of your heart, the Helper of your infirmities, the Reprover of your faults? Is He not the Earnest of your inheritance, the Seal of your redemption, and your Guide into all truth — taking the things of Jesus and showing them unto you? Oh, child of God, meditate much on His indwelling presence, gracious unction, enlightening counsels, constraining love, quickening power, sanctifying graces, reviving consolations, sustaining peace, enlivening joy, and your cup shall ever-/over-flow by grace.

Second, to keep your cup ever-/over-flowing, beg for grace to keep your soul empty of all that is not Cod and Christ. Especially strive to remain empty of yourself, remembering the humble confession of a giant Puritan: “We are too big in ourselves when we do well, and too little in Christ in our failings.” Too often, even were God to shed His love upon us, we would not have room to receive it, for we are brim-full with self- and God-given religion: prayerless and prayerful prayers, humility and pride, unworthiness and worthiness, missing and received texts, spoiled and fresh manna, miseries and graces. We are filled either with what we have done or what God has done, or both. How seldom do God’s gifts and graces drive us to our Giver! Too often we live more for “Christmas presents” than Christ, more for a humiliated than an exalted Christ, more for an exalted Christ than for the Father who has sent Him. Too few are the moments when we are filled with Christ, who empties us again, and sends us to the Father to end in a Triune God with Paul, “Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable Gift” (2 Cor. 9:15). Be assured, child of God, God will fill your cup with the Christ-child to the measure that it is empty of all outside of Him. Complain not at the delay of His visitations, until you can say by renewal, “Give me Jesus, else I die”; and once there, labor to abide in a filling Christ, for, “As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye,” Christ taught, “except ye abide in Me” (Jn. 15:4).

Third, to keep your cup ever-/over-flowing, beg for grace to drink deeply of what God does set before you. Despite unworthiness, drink all you can.

God will fill your cup with the Christ-child to the measure that it is empty of all outside of Him.

Drink all the more on account of your unworthiness. A hungry and thirsty guest cannot remain a bashful guest when nourishing food and drink is set before him. Remember, child of God, there is such a thing as proud humility which counts the drinking of God’s graces to be presumption even when the soul is fainting for thirst. Active, God-honoring faith speaks a different language: “I know God’s graces are too good for me, and I am not worthy of the least of them; but if God places them before me, and invites me to eat and drink, I will not push them away out of false piety. My need is too great; my hunger, too severe; my thirst, too painful; my case, too desperate. I will drink unashamedly, freely acknowledging God to be my royal Giver, and I, His famished beggar. I will drink deeply upon His bidding. I will come boldly to the throne of grace to obtain mercy in time of need (Heb. 4:16).”

Finally, to keep your cup ever-/over-flowing, beg for grace to share the over-flow you have received. Though spiritual life cannot be communicated from one to another, yet God’s child will seek to do so, for he desires grace for the whole world. He will magnify the goodness of the Lord, and proclaim Him as the Name of names. As John Trapp quipped, ‘Those that have true happiness must carry their cup upright, and see that it overflows into their poor brethren’s emptier vessels.”

Do you have room for Christ in Christmas? Have you, by grace, experienced room lacking, room formed, room filled, room continually filled?

Rev. j.R. Beeke is pastor of the First Netherlands Reformed Congregation of Grand Rapids, Michigan.

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