He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.

          If you’re around my age—probably not the best way to begin—you may remember some of those old commercials.  There was a Folger’s commercial from when I was a teenager, around 1985.  A son comes home from college early Christmas morning.  His little sister, already up and eyeing the presents at 5:00 a.m., sees him come in.  They make coffee for the whole family; the aroma wakes everybody.  It’s a beautiful start to what you know will be a beautiful day.

          What if Peter had come home only to find his key no longer worked?  What if, knowing someone was at home, he knocked, but the lights stayed out and the door stayed locked?

          Maybe you remember coming home on Christmas, from college, or from being on the road, or on that prized military leave.  You arrived.  The door opened.  You were welcomed.  They tell you it just wouldn’t have been Christmas without you there, too.  Now it was perfect.

          What if you had knocked, only to be told from the other side of the closed door to go away?

          Many of my Christmas memories are aglow with the joy of coming home.  Sometimes it was late at night, early in the dark hours of the morning.  The surprise, the joy, when those you loved knew you had arrived.

          We know the feeling of welcome, the joy, the peace, the love.  To be received with open arms, hugged, patted on the back, smiles—good, warm, home, happy.  I hope you never know the feeling of not being welcomed: to enter only to find crossed arms, a grunt or grumble of acknowledgment, closed off, not hugged—hurt, unhappy.

          In Jesus’ open arms you see the open arms of God.  We don’t usually talk of the cross at Christmas—gifts, yes; angels, the manger, the baby.  The baby is for the cross.  Hard, wonderful, holy.  Jesus comes from God with a message for us, a reliable, trustworthy, true message of love: “Come home, son; come home, daughter.”  The door is open for you.  Don’t delay.  Don’t let this time here be just an obligatory duty to your family, a polite tip of the hat to Jesus and whatnot.  Ask God to make this gathering, this hour, this evening something more for you, and He will.

          Jesus says, “Look, I stand at the door and knock.  If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.” (Rev 3:20).  If anyone hears my voice.  We probably won’t hear the bells on Christmas Day.  We hear the old, familiar carols play.  Have you listened to the words?  I’m not talking about “Jingle Bells” and “Frosty the Snowman.”  There’s a message in the carols of Christmas, just as there’s a message beneath the wrapping paper, the getting new things, the feasting—in all these a message for you from God.

          Christmas is an invitation to listen, to listen for the knock at the door.  John tells us that, when Jesus came, “his own did not receive him.”  Why not?  If they were his own, wouldn’t they have recognized him?  Some of you fathers have had the experience of coming home without your beard, only for your little ones to cry and not know this strange man in the house, until they heard your voice, and then they looked, wondered, and maybe began to be a little braver, a little comforted.

          His own did not receive him, I suppose, because they didn’t hear his voice.  If you’ve made the time to read much in the Bible, you may have noticed how hearing God’s voice was a real, ongoing problem.  It still is.  But why?  Maybe they were busy with the things that mattered to them: work, play, buying, selling, going here and there, eating, sleeping.  And then for some guy to come along, talking about God?  Who wants to hear about that?

          We don’t hear the knock at the door when the noise around us is so loud—the blasting stereo, the loud television; the noises of work, on the phone, the seemingly non-stop stream of text alerts, Facebook Messenger, games.  Demands, distractions—if you ask about the knock at the door they don’t know: they may have heard something; they weren’t really paying attention.

          It’s easy to pay attention when angels appear in dazzling glory, in heavenly song, when a new, brilliant star appears.  The angels announced that Jesus had come, was born, lowly, wrapped in a swaddling cloth, for a crib a feeding trough because there was no room for him.  No room, no welcome.

          We give gifts; we receive gifts.  You’re receiving a gift tonight: the gift of Jesus.  Don’t say in your heart, “that’s the one gift I don’t want!”  Don’t see the gift only to toss it aside without interest, saying: “I’ve already got one of those!”

          If you only knew what God was holding out to you, in Jesus Christ.  Jesus, God, old songs, Bible, love, peace, church—stuff for old women and little kids, right?  It’s hard to make room, I know; with our hearts so cluttered and dim, with the demands and distractions, I know.  God can help you to make room, if you’d like, tonight: here and now He can.  God is brilliant at makeovers, remodeling.  Ask him in.  Listen to what He proposes to do for you.

          Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!  Who can explain His decisions?  Who can understand His ways?  For all things were created by Him, and all things exist through Him and for Him.  To God be the glory forever!