Vacancy
I do not know if this happens anymore with smartphones and the rest of technology allowing for contact anytime, anywhere, but I remember the following experience as a kid. My family was on a road trip: Mom and Dad in the front seat of the station wagon, three older kids in the bench seat in the middle, and the youngest boys in the way back. The drive had been slowed by this and that, so we did not get as far as we expected in the long day of traveling. My father was looking for a place to stop and lodge for the night.
We had no reservations, so we had our eyes peeled for motels with the neon sign showing the word “vacancy” lit up. We drove past plenty that had both words lit “no vacancy”. The places with no visible signs at all required a stop so dad could go in to ask in-person. We eventually found a spot that had room for us. Is this reminding you of anything?
This time of year we are anticipating the Christmas reading about the couple from Nazareth who had no connections in the region around Bethlehem, and since the young woman, Mary was so close to delivering their firstborn, they needed a place to stay. Just to be playfully anachronistic about it, let’s say they knew no one with a roomy penthouse flat. There was a vacancy neither at the Marriott nor at the Best Western. They were full too. Even the humble little inn was full, but in this emergency, they just might have to settle for the innkeeper’s stable to the side of the inn…sort of a cave with an enclosed front. Here the animals are sheltered from the cold wind. All right then: vacancy with the beasts.
This week anticipating the Scriptures next Sunday will be interesting. It is the Fourth Sunday of Advent, and our thoughts are really shifting from the second coming in glory and judgment to the first coming, the birth of Jesus.
We look forward to a passage from 2 Samuel where King David is worried about a fine house in which the Lord could stay. He does not want the Ark of God to have to be in the tent they had for him. He wants to build the Lord a house, perhaps a temple.
We have a canticle in place of the psalm, in which the Song of Mary signals that something very odd and wonderful is afoot; the Lord is making way to stay with them and turn things around drastically.
We will read from Romans 16 how a deep mystery of redemptive power kept secret for long ages, now has come to be fully disclosed. There will be room for the Gentiles in the family through the obedience of faith.
We will see in Luke 1, how the angel Gabriel asks Mary for her compliance with God. God has finally begun the manner for divine presence to fully come into the world. At last, there will be a place for God in the world and the name “Emmanuel” — “God with us” will have its ultimate application.
The Collect, i.e., the prayer for 4 Advent masterfully uses the teaching of Jesus but reverses the imagery. In John 14 he comforts his distressed disciples with the promise he will go and prepare a place for them and will bring them to himself, that where he is, they may be also. There in his Father’s house that has many rooms, there will be room for them. The Collect reverses this and suggests by Christ’s daily visitation, we can prepare within us a mansion made for Christ. We will look more closely at this later in the week, asking the question, “Is there room in us to receive the Lord Jesus, who so wants to come to us. Read the prayer here for a first look.
Purify our conscience, Almighty God, by your daily visitation, that your Son Jesus Christ, at his coming, may find in us a mansion prepared for himself; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
I am looking forward to diving a little deeper. We are always growing, always moving closer to a full realization of our ultimate home in the Holy One, who is making room for us.