Making Room . . .

In this Christmas Season, how quickly we lose sight of what’s truly important.   It’s so easy to rush pell-mell here, there and everywhere, never taking time to reflect and simply enjoy life.  I want to encourage you to stop, pour yourself a cup of coffee or tea, prop your feet up and take a few minutes to read this simple story and reflect on the true meaning of Christmas.

 

Wally's Christmas Pageant

by Donohue, Dina

http://www.sxc.hu/photo/659579

 

For years now whenever Christmas pageants are talked about in a certain little town in the Midwest, someone is sure to mention the name of Wallace Purling. Wally's performance in one annual production of the Nativity Play has slipped into the realm of legend. But the old timers who were in the audience that night never tire of recalling exactly what happened.   Wally was nine that year and in the second grade, though he should have been in the fourth grade. Most people in the town knew that he had difficulty in keeping up. He was big and clumsy, slow in movement and mind. Still, Wally was liked by the other children in his class, all of whom were smaller than he, though the boys had trouble hiding their irritation when Wally would ask to play ball with them or any game, for that matter, in which winning was important. Most often they'd find a way to keep him out, but Wally would hang around anyway - not sulking, just hoping. He was always a helpful boy, a willing and smiling one, and the natural protector, paradoxically, of the underdog. Sometimes if the older boys chased the younger ones away, it would always be Wally who'd say, "Can't they stay? They're no bother." Wally fancied the idea of being a shepherd with a flute in the Christmas pageant that year, but the play's director, Miss Lambard, assigned him to a more important role. After all, she reasoned, the Innkeeper did not have too many lines, and Wally's size would make his refusal of lodging to Joseph more forceful. And so it happened that the usual large, partisan audience gathered for the town's yearly extravaganza of crooks and creches, of beards, crowns, halos and a whole stageful of squeaky voices. No one on stage or off was more caught up in the magic of the night than Wallace Purling. They said later that he stood in the wings and watched the performace with such fascination that from time to time Miss Lambard had to make sure he did not wander onstage before his cue. Then came the time when Joseph appeared, slowly, tenderly guiding Mary to the door of the inn. Joseph knocked hard on the wooden door set into the painted backdrop. Wally the Innkeeper was there, waiting. "What do you want?" Wally said, swinging the door open with a brusque gesture. "We seek lodging." "Seek it elsewhere." Wally looked straight ahead, but spoke vigorously. "The inn is filled." "Sir we have asked everywhere in vain. We have traveled far and we are very weary." "There is no room in this inn for you." Wally looked properly stern. "Please good innkeeper, this is my wife Mary. She is heavy with child and needs a place to rest. Surely you must have some small corner for her. She is so tired." Now for the first time, the Innkeeper relaxed his stiff stance and looked down at Mary. With that, there was a long pause, long enough to make the audience a bit tense with embarrassment. "No! Be gone!" the prompter whispered from the wings. "No!" Wally repeated automatically. "Be gone!" Joseph sadly placed his arm around Mary, and Mary laid her head upon her husband's shoulder and the two of them started to move away. The Innkeeper did not return inside the inn, however. Wally stood there in the doorway watching the forlorn couple. His mouth was open, his brow creased with concern, and his eyes filling unmistakably with tears. And suddenly this Christmas pageant became different from all others. "Don't go Joseph," Wally called out. "Bring Mary back." And Wallace Purling's face grew into a bright smile. "You can have my room."   Will you, like Wally, make room for Jesus in your life this year?    I’m not talking about just fitting him into the creases and crevices of your life but opening wide the door and welcoming him into your heart.  See what he promises . . . Here I am! I stand at the door and knock.  If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person and they with me.    Revelation 3:20 (NIV)