Merry Christmas! When our Children’s department talked about doing a Las Posadas as part of our Advent Festival, I was all for it and even encouraged them saying, “Just let me know how I can help.”

I’m a little slow on the uptake, but I’m figuring out those words pretty much give people carte blanche.

Las Posadas is a Mexican tradition where children reenact that 1st Christmas Eve where Joseph and Mary ride into Bethlehem looking for an Inn. “Posadas” means “inns.”

Guess whose job it was to be the Innkeeper?  I was given a costume and my lines. My job was to stand on the other side of a door, and grumpily greet groups of children over the course of an hour, telling them I had no room for them, and by way of explaining, describing the tradition of Las Posadas. And I was happy to do it!

But the looks on those children’s faces when I opened the door and told them I had no room for them and they could not stay was not pretty. Some looked scared, others confused…and some, downright agitated! Even if it had not been written in the script, I would still have had to let them in or be hog tied, tarred and feathered.

The message of Christmas Eve is about making room for Jesus. When Jesus comes we need to make room for him in our hearts and in our lives. And here’s the deal…when he comes he does not come alone. Joining Jesus at his nativity are:

• Shepherd and smelly sheep,
• neighbor and stranger from afar,
• both poor and kingly,
• angel and no-so angelic folk;
  

…all come and crowd the stable.

We do not get to pick who comes and who stays. If the Christmas story tells us anything, it tells us all are welcome, all belong, no one is turned away. As someone has said, “When God come, there is always a crowd.”

Leo Buscaglia writes in his book, “Seven Stories of Christmas Love,” about taking a trip to Bali. He arrived the day before Christmas and assigned his host’s servant, Ratab, as his interpreter. Offhandedly, Buscaglia mentions how beautiful it is in Bali and how it is the perfect place to celebrate Christmas.

“What is Christmas?” Ratab asked. “Christmas is the birthday of the Christian God, Jesus,” Buscaglia explains. “Who is the Christian God, Jesus?” Ratab asked.

So Buscaglia starts explaining in rather simple terms the Christmas story. When he gets to the part where the Innkeeper tells Joseph and his pregnant wife, Mary, there is no room for them, Ratab interrupts saying, “I don’t get it. Why would people not make room for Mary and Joseph to share their bed?”

Buscaglia explained that Mary and Joseph didn’t know anyone in Bethlehem. But this didn’t seem to make any difference to Ratab who still didn’t get it and insisted someone should have made room for Mary and Joseph.

“But they did not know that Mary was to give birth to their God, Jesus,” Buscaglia further explained. “That is not important,” Ratab insisted matter-of-factly, “They still should have given her a place to sleep.”

Finally Buscaglia realized that there was no arguing with this statement and that there were some things he would never be able to explain to Ratab. So he changed the subject.

When they arrived at the cottage he would be staying at, several of the young men from the village showed up to greet them. During the evening’s frivolity, Buscaglia overheard Ratab speaking to the others. Every now and then he heard words like Jesus and Mary and Bethlehem. It was clear Ratab was telling the others the Christmas story. By the time the evening had wound down, Buscaglia had been presented with Christmas gifts of bananas, coconuts, papayas, pieces of batik, paintings and even oil lamps.
Having nothing to give them in return, Buscaglia pilfered through his suitcase and gave away just about everything he had; t-shirts, socks, pants, a spare toothbrush and so on.

When Ratab finally announced it was time for their guest to retire, Buscaglia began to say goodbye to his new friends. Ratab explained to him, however that it was a custom of his tribe not to abandon guests on their first night in Bali.

Buscaglia writes:
“When you have made a new friend,” Ratab explained, “it is bad manners to leave him.” The bed was small but Ratab picked six of the guests to join me. They put me in the middle and arranged their bodies about me. Like joyfully exhausted children, they fell asleep instantly- one holding my hand, another with his head on my shoulder, another with his leg over mine. 

I stared up at the thatched roof and listened to the even breathing of my bed partners. The light of a single oil lamp danced about the room. Outside, the [makeshift] Christmas tree glittered beneath the stars.

Ratab, who had taken the place of honor at my side, slid his arm under my head. “I still don’t understand why they could not make room for Mary.” After a moment of silence, he said, “Well, Merry Christmas,” and fell asleep.

“When God come, there is always a crowd.”

In some places and cultures and communities, people do not understanding why others cannot make room.

People who are drawn by love learn to share our homes and lives; to make room not just for Jesus but for all those who come with him; the unwed mother living at the Children’s home in Waco; the AIDS orphan in Kenya; the impoverished family living in the subsidized apartments behind your housing addition.

And if we can be bighearted enough, then we can receive Jesus and all those who come with him. And Christmas will have become for us, a way of life. Merry Christmas!