Making Space for the Saviour
The birth of Jesus is one of the most familiar stories in the world. We hear it every December, often softened by carols and nativity scenes. And yet, at its centre is a deeply uncomfortable detail: there was no room.
Luke tells us that when the time came for Mary to give birth, she laid her baby in a manger “because there was no guest room available for them” (Luke 2:7). The King of the world entered the world without anyone noticing, without ceremony, without accommodation. The Creator arrived, and humanity was too full to make space.
This wasn’t hostility. No one chased Joseph and Mary away. No one consciously rejected the Messiah. The problem was more ordinary—and perhaps more confronting. People were busy. Rooms were occupied. Life was already full.
And so the Saviour was born on the margins.
This detail matters because it tells us something essential about how God comes to us—and about how easily we miss Him.
God Comes Without Force
If God were trying to make a point about power, this would be a strange way to do it. No palace. No royal announcement. No clearing of rooms to make way for the divine. Instead, God arrives as a baby, dependent, easy to overlook and ignore.
Jesus does not force His way in. He does not displace anyone. He waits to be received.
This is true not only of the first Christmas, but of every Christmas since. Jesus still comes quietly. He still asks for room rather than demanding it. And He is still surprisingly easy to crowd out.
Crowded Lives, Not Hard Hearts
When we think about rejecting Jesus, we often imagine hardened scepticism or outright disbelief. But Advent invites us to consider a more subtle danger: not rejection, but preoccupation.
The people of Bethlehem weren’t evil. They were simply full. Full inns, full schedules, full obligations. Caesar’s census had disrupted everything. People were travelling, hosting, managing logistics. There just wasn’t space.
And isn’t this how it often is for us?
We do not so much refuse Jesus as we sideline Him. He isn’t denied—just deferred. Not opposed—just postponed until things settle down. We intend to make space later, when life is quieter, when the season passes, when the pressure lifts…
But Advent insists on this truth: God comes precisely when life is crowded.
Why We Crowd Him Out
If Jesus is good news, why is He so often displaced?
Part of the answer is that Jesus doesn’t merely want to be added to our lives; He wants to re-order them. Making space for Christ isn’t simply about fitting Him into an already full calendar. It means allowing Him to challenge what fills it.
Jesus threatens our illusions of control. He interrupts our self-sufficiency. He exposes the ways we rely on productivity, approval, success, or even religious busyness to give us meaning.
In this way, the crowded inn isn’t just a historical detail—it is a mirror.
We fill our lives with good things: work, family, ministry, responsibility, even service to God. But good things can become ultimate things. And when they do, there is no room left—even for Christ.
The Manger as an Invitation
The irony of Christmas is that while there was no room in the inn, there was room in the stable.
The poor made space. The shepherds came. Those with little to lose were open enough to receive Him.
This is often how Jesus still enters our lives—not through our strength, but through our emptiness. Not through our competence, but through our need. The places we least want God to see are often the places He chooses to dwell.
The manger tells us that Jesus doesn’t wait for perfect conditions. He comes into the mess, the exhaustion, the unresolved places. But He does ask for room.
Making Space This Advent
Advent isn’t about adding more spiritual activity to an already crowded season. It is about making space—real space—for the Saviour.
That may mean resisting the urge to rush. It may mean sitting with silence when distraction feels easier. It may mean honest prayer that sounds less like performance and more like need.
It may also mean asking uncomfortable questions:
What currently fills my inner life?
Where does Jesus feel like an interruption rather than a gift?
What am I protecting from His influence?
What would need to move for Him to have room?
Making space for Jesus is not a one-time act. It is a daily, deliberate posture of welcome.
The God Who Still Knocks
The wonder of Christmas is not just that there was no room—but that God came anyway.
Jesus enters a world that has no space for Him and stays. He grows, teaches, suffers, and ultimately gives His life for the very people who overlooked Him at His birth. The child laid in a borrowed manger becomes the Saviour who makes room for us in the kingdom of God.
This Advent, the question is not whether Jesus is present. He is.
The question is whether we will make space.
Not because He needs it—but because we do.
