For many years, our family in Texas asked if we were coming to visit for the holidays. With four children, school events, multiple jobs, and church activities, traveling across the country was not a possibility. The idea of enduring the ordeal of travel during the Christmas season added to our reluctance. TV news segments highlighting the crush of people at the airports during the holiday season only validated our decision.
And yet this holiday madness is precisely what Mary and Joseph endured when they arrived at Bethlehem. It was festival time in Israel and Bethlehem was crowded! When Mary’s time to deliver her son arrived, we read that there was no place for them to stay, not one room!
“Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed wife, who was with child. So it was, that while they were there, the days were completed for her to be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling cloths, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.” (Luke 2:4-7, NKJV)
Enter one of the most maligned characters in history: the innkeeper, a character who – for all of his storied reputations – may not even exist! We don’t know if the inn Mary and Joseph went to was like a hotel that simply had no vacant rooms. It’s possible it was simply a guest room in the house of relatives that was already full. The scripture does not give us more detail and it does not record a specific person who turned away the desperate couple, but countless books and plays still feature an innkeeper: hapless at best, heartless at worst.
But innkeeper or no innkeeper, it is clear no one in Bethlehem was expecting the Son of God to be born in their midst. When the glory of God interrupted, no one had time or room for him. Thus, Jesus was born in a lowly barn or cave, and laid in a feed trough.
Whether or not there was an innkeeper, I ask myself, what would I have done? How often has the glory of God shown up in small things like a sunset or the joy of a child, and I have been too busy to see it? Lord, teach us to make room in our lives for your glorious interruptions!
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