No Room

Lyrics

[INTRODUCTION] [VERSE 1] The parking lot is crowded The sanctuary’s bright The choir sounds like angels As they rehearse for Christmas night The children know their lines by heart The candles all are lit And everybody’s making room For everything but it The widow sits three pews back The newcomer sits alone The family down on Maple Street Might lose the place they call home But we’ve got wreaths and poinsettias And another pageant to pull off So we smile and sing of Bethlehem And pray that’s somehow enough [PRE-CHORUS] And I wonder if we’d recognize The story if it happened now Would we open up the door? Would we even slow down? [CHORUS] We hung the wreath upon the door We lit the tree and decked the hall But when Love came looking for a place We said there wasn’t room at all No room in the schedule No room in the budget No room in the plans we’d made No room in the inn No room in our hearts No room for sacred surprises today [VERSE 2] A mother works the late shift A father sleeps in his car A teenager eats dinner Beneath the glow of a Walmart star A shelter fills before sundown The waiting room stays packed And somewhere we keep talking like Compassion is a thing we lack But maybe that’s not quite the truth Maybe mercy hasn’t gone Maybe we’ve just built our lives so full There’s nowhere left to put it on [PRE-CHORUS] And I wonder if we’d recognize The story if it happened now Would we offer up a room? Would we even look around? [CHORUS] We hung the wreath upon the door We lit the tree and decked the hall But when Love came looking for a place We said there wasn’t room at all No room in the schedule No room in the budget No room in the plans we’d made No room in the inn No room in our hearts No room for sacred surprises today [BRIDGE] There was room for the census Room for the taxes Room for the empire Room for the throne Room for the merchants Room for the soldiers But somehow no room For God coming home There was room for the headlines Room for the outrage Room for the endless noise That fills our days Room for another purchase Room for another screen But no room for the stranger Standing in between [FINAL CHORUS] So clear a chair at the table Leave a light on in the dark Make a little space for wonder Before the wonder departs Maybe the kingdom still arrives The way it always has before Not through power Not through plenty Just through an open door We hung the wreath upon the door We lit the tree and decked the hall And if Love comes looking for a place Let there be room after all Let there be room in the schedule Let there be room in the budget Let there be room in the plans we’ve made Let there be room in the inn Let there be room in our hearts Let there be room for sacred surprises again [OUTRO] The sign still hangs above the stable The angels still sing their song The question isn’t whether Christ has come The question is whether we’ll make room after all