Listen

In those days Caesar Augustus declared that everyone throughout the empire should be enrolled in the tax lists. This first enrollment occurred when Quirinius governed Syria. Everyone went to their own cities to be enrolled. Since Joseph belonged to David’s house and family line, he went up from the city of Nazareth in Galilee to David’s city, called Bethlehem, in Judea. He went to be enrolled together with Mary, who was promised to him in marriage and who was pregnant. While they were there, the time came for Mary to have her baby. She gave birth to her firstborn child, a son, wrapped him snugly, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the guestroom.

Luke 2:1-7

Think

“There was no place for them in the guestroom.” Have you been disappointed by not fitting in somewhere? Have you ever felt that you are missing a place to belong? Perhaps you have never experienced belonging somewhere.

Today’s scripture brings us guidance on what we can expect when we feel that we don’t have a place where we belong. In Christ we belong to David’s house and family line, which is the promise given from God to us. This makes us kin to Christ. We have a place where we belong, and it is with Christ. This is the beauty of Christmas – Jesus came to be among humankind, so that we all may be gathered together in Christ, so that we all may have a place at the table, so that we all may call God our home.

What are you worried about? Do you want to experience the feeling of belonging to God? Whatever it might be, know that you are from God.

Israel Loachamin

Pray

Lord, thank you for giving me a place to belong. May I give you my worries of not feeling welcome in a place where I belong, and may I feel at peace knowing that I belong to God. Amen.

Go

Where shepherds lately knelt, and kept the angel’s word,
I come in half belief, a pilgrim strangely stirred;
But there is room and welcome there for me,
but there is room and welcome there for me.

Can I, will I forget how Love was born and burned
its way into my heart unasked, unforced, unearned,
to die, to live, and not alone for me,
to die, to live, and not alone for me?

from “Where Shepherds Lately Knelt” by Jaroslav J. Vajda (1986)