Pastor Kevin Miller writes:

One year when I was working in publishing, we had our annual staff Christmas Party. There were about 150 people in the room seated around tables that held six or eight people. The CEO came in right before the program was about to start, so there weren’t many seats left.

He spied an empty seat at our table and came over. Very politely he said to the woman sitting by the empty seat, “May I sit here?”

She was waiting for someone from her department to come, and so she kind of scowled at him and said, “No, that’s taken.”

“Oh, okay,” he said, and walked away.

Once he got a few feet out of range, we burst out laughing and said to the woman: “You just dissed the CEO!” She said, “I did? What?” She had worked there for only two weeks, and she’d never seen his photo.

And that’s what happens when Jesus enters the world he’s created. Most people say, “Sorry, don’t recognize you. No seat for you. That one’s taken.”