Cradles for the Living Christ - an Advent Prayer for December 10

Cradles for the Living Christ

Ralph Spaulding Cushman (20^th century)

 

Let not our hearts be busy inns,

That have no room for Thee,

But cradles for the living Christ and His nativity.

Still driven by a thousand cares
The pilgrims come and go;
The hurried caravans press on;
The inns are crowded so!

Oh, lest we starve, and lest we die in our stupidity,
Come, Holy Child, within and share
Our hospitality.

 

            “Because there was no room for them in the inn.”  A crowded city, all the lodging filled, no room for Jesus.  The image, as Cushman points out, speaks to the one who is too busy, whose heart is too crowded to believe. 

            Yet it speaks as well to the believers, to those who say, “Yes, Lord Jesus, come into my heart,” yet find that heart over time crowded with the cares of this world, with the busyness of a life of faith, and yes, with way too many messages in our in-boxes. 

            I made a feeble attempt at creating a flannelgraph presentation many years ago based on a short story, My Heart, Christ’s Home.  The storyteller invited Christ into his home (his heart), and moved from room to room as they explored together what the life of faith meant in the experience of the everyday.

At one point, Jesus tells the narrator that he’d been waiting for him every morning in the (with)drawing room, but that he’d been lonely, as the narrator didn’t appear.  To paraphrase, Jesus reminded the young man that their time together mattered to Jesus just as much as it mattered to him.  Makes me wonder, how often has Jesus been sitting alone, waiting for me to join him? 

 

Prayer Focus:  room for Jesus