Borrowed Rooms #adventbookclub – Day 35
Luke 2:7 (CEV)
7 she gave birth to her first-born son. She dressed him in baby clothes and laid him on a bed of hay, because there was no room for them in the inn.
Luke 22:7-13
Jesus Eats with His Disciples
7 The day had come for the Festival of Thin Bread, and it was time to kill the Passover lambs. 8 So Jesus said to Peter and John, “Go and prepare the Passover meal for us to eat.”
9 But they asked, “Where do you want us to prepare it?”
10 Jesus told them, “As you go into the city, you will meet a man carrying a jar of water. Follow him into the house 11 and say to the owner, ‘Our teacher wants to know where he can eat the Passover meal with his disciples.’ 12 The owner will take you upstairs and show you a large room ready for you to use. Prepare the meal there.”
13 Peter and John left. They found everything just as Jesus had told them, and they prepared the Passover meal.
A borrowed room suggestions having no place of your own. Nowhere that is safe, or that ties you down.
Plenty today know the lack of security that not having a home of your own can bring. The unease of never knowing when you might be evicted, or not able to pay the rent. The landlord might suddenly decide not to have tenants any more or choose to go back on their word (maybe through no fault of their own). Life without a permanent home is a risky business, with the very real possibility of constantly having to find a new place to live
Jesus was born in a borrowed room, and his final night on earth was a borrowed room too. He had no place of his own, but he chose to use other people’s homes.
I think there is something powerful in allowing others to offer us hospitality. To receive from them, to give them the chance to give. Jesus was very good at that. We hear of him going to many people’s houses. He wasn’t stuck in one place, but was able to be with people, where they were and receive what they had to offer.
That continues today. Jesus has no home on this earth. He needs ours. He needs our lives for his place to live and work. He longs to come and dwell with us and in us, and to receive all we have to offer.
Will I allow him to not just borrow my life, but to have it, move into it, inhabit it?
Which brings me to one of my favourite hymns that ends in a prayer
Come Let Us Sing of a Wonderful Love
Come Lord, dwell with me, I pray
This year, several of us are reading Beginnings and Endings by Maggi Dawn and joining together to comment on it. Do join us at the Adventbookclub Facebook page, follow #adventbookclub on Twitter or comment below. If you are also reading and blogging on this book, let me know and I will link to your blog.
Pam's Perambulation 