Preoccupation

This is Chirstmas week and everyone is a buzz trying to finish up the last minute details before the BIG day. This week I want to share with you an article from John Mc Arthur at Grace to You about some people that missed Christmas.

Luke chapter 2 and verse 7. Now I want you to think with me as we look at this truth. This is the story, of course, in Luke 2 of the birth of Christ and I just want you to look at verse 7 and we're only going to pick out some highlights to illustrate this matter of the people who missed Christmas. Verse 7, speaking of Mary it says; "And she brought forth her first born son and wrapped Him in swaddling cloth (really, they weren't clothes really, they were just long strips of cloth) and laid Him in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn." Now the first person who missed Christmas was the innkeeper.

The innkeeper missed Christmas. It was right in front of him but he missed it. He had to confront a pregnant woman and her husband but he had no room for them. And so he missed it. Look back at verse 7. He not only missed it by not letting them in to stay with him but he missed it by being so indifferent that he doesn't even appear to have called for any help for Mary when she gave birth because verse 7 is markedly concerned with a lonely birth, a lonely birth. We don't even know where Joseph was. If I know anything about fathers at the time of births, especially young fathers like Joseph who could have been as young as 15 or 16 years of age, he would have been little help at all, at this time. And so it writes, she brought forth her first born son.
Mary brought forth her own son. And then it says, she wrapped Him in swaddling cloth. Mary did. Where were the midwives? Where were the people who were supposed to care for things like that? Where was the innkeeper? Didn't he know anybody who could help? Didn't his wife concern herself with this? Or, wasn't there some source of assistance to Mary?

Ah, but after all hadn't the prophets said He would be despised and rejected? And wouldn't it be true that this could be the case at His very birth? And it says, she laid Him in a manger. An animal feeding trough. Swaddling cloth, by the way, were long strips of cloth and when an infant was born, immediately the infant was wrapped, its limbs and its body in this swaddling cloth. And then, of course, in an outer blanket. That was the tradition. And certainly there would be a midwife to clean the baby and to do that. But, no, Mary did that. This was a lonely birth.

The loneliness of it that in that hour of all hours when womanhood should be surrounded by the tenderest care Mary was alone. She with her own hands wrapped the baby around with those swaddling cloth? and laid Him in a manger. There was no one to do it for her. And again, I say the pity of it and yet the glory of it to the heart of Mary.

The innkeeper missed Christmas. And what amazes me is that he missed it even though it might have happened on his own property And I began to think about why he missed Christmas. Simple answer. Preoccupation.
Preoccupation. You say ‑ What do you mean? Well, he was so busy. I mean his inn was full or his guest room was full or all of his little lean‑to's were full. Why? Because it vas the census in Bethlehem and the city was literally bulging with everybody who ever had any ancestry there and they were coming; to the city and since it was the city of David those who were in the line of David were there. And that's why Joseph and Mary were there coming from the line of David, one through Solomon and one through Nathan. So, there they were. And the city was bursting with people. And he was busy caring for his guests in his house and whatever situation he was involved with and he wasn't hostile and he wasn't unloving and he wasn't unsympathetic and he wasn't really indifferent he was just busy. Just real busy.

I guess there are a lot of people like that. The chambers of their souls are filled with needless things, filled with human interests. They're filled with the stuff that doesn't matter and they miss the Christ of God.
It was an ignorant preoccupation on the part of the innkeeper, he didn't know. He didn't know. Ignorant preoccupation. I look at the world and that's what I see, they just don't know. They don't know who Christ is. They don't know who He is, they don't know why He came. They're just ignorant. And ignorantly preoccupied with the mundane and the meaningless. Oh how ridiculous it is to live your entire life in mundane, meaningless activity, wake up sometime in eternity without God and look back over all of the waste.

The innkeeper missed it. He was too busy. Look at your own life. Did you spend more time shopping then you did adoring Christ?
Did you spend more money on stuff then you invested in His kingdom?
Then maybe you've been in the trap. too. Where the innkeeper was.

Read the whole article at Grace to You