“God’s anonymous: the Innkeeper”
Luke 2:7
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus.
Back in 1966 in Guideposts magazine, author Dina Donohue told the story of a boy named Wally Purling. He was nine years old and in the second grade, though he should have been in the fourth. Everyone knew he couldn’t keep up. He was big and clumsy, slow in body and even slower in mind. The other children in his class liked him, even though they were much smaller. The only trouble was when some of the boys wouldn’t let uncoordinated Wally play ball.
Usually they found a way to keep him off the field, but Wally liked to hang around anyway—not sulking, really, just hoping that someday they would let him play. He was always willing to help those who were less fortunate, a sort of natural protector of the underdog. If the older boys would chase the younger ones away, you could always count on Wally to say, “Can’t they stay? They’re no bother.”
And when it came time for the Christmas pageant that year, Wally hoped to play a shepherd, but the director, Miss Lumbard, thought it better to assign him a different role, “an even more important role,” she said. After all, or so she thought, the Innkeeper had only a few lines, and Wally’s relatively enormous size would help make his words sound a little more forceful and demanding.
And when it came time for the Yuletide extravaganza, the usual crowd of families and friends turned out. There was the whole bit—staffs, beards, robes, crowns, and halos, not to mention a stage full of small, squeaky voices. But no one on stage or in the audience was more caught up in the magic of the night than Wally. As he waited in the wings, he watched with such fascination that Miss Lumbard had to make sure he didn’t wander onstage before his turn.
Finally, the time came. Joseph appeared, tenderly guiding Mary to the door of the inn, then knocked hard on the wooden door set into the painted backdrop. And on cue, Wally the Innkeeper swung the door open. With a brusque gesture said, “What do you want?”
“We seek lodging,” replied Joseph.
Looking straight ahead, but speaking vigorously, Wally said, “Seek it elsewhere. The inn is filled.”
“But we’ve already looked everywhere. We’ve traveled so far and we’re both so tired.”
“Well, there’s no room in the inn,” answered Wally, looking properly stern.
“But please, good innkeeper,” continued Joseph. “My wife Mary is heavy with Child and needs a place to rest. Surely you must have some small, quiet corner for her to lie down and rest.”
For the first time, Wally looked down at Mary and Joseph and relaxed his stiff stance. And as he did, he paused, not too long, but long enough to make the audience a little tense with embarrassment.
Trying to keep it moving, Miss Lumbard whispered from the wings, “No! Be gone!”
“No!” repeated Wally automatically. “Be gone!”
Sadly, Joseph put his arm around Mary and Mary laid her head on his shoulder as the two of them started to move away. Meanwhile, Wally, still in the doorway, watched the poor couple walk away. His mouth was open, his forehead was creased with concern, and his eyes began to fill with tears.
All of a sudden, Wally couldn’t help but cry out, “Don’t go! Come back! You can have my room.”
You could have heard a pin drop. But in that moment, while some might have thought the pageant was ruined, everyone knew it was the most memorable and meaningful Christmas pageant of all.
So it was in the words of Luke chapter 2. I’ll begin at verse 1: “In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria. And all went to be registered, each to his own town. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to 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, who was with child. And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. And she gave birth to her firstborn Son and wrapped Him in swaddling cloths and laid Him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn” (Luke 2:1-7).
Unfortunately, over the years, we’ve overlaid the birth of Christ with such legend and tradition that it’s hard to think of how it all really must have been--a man and a woman, so young, so pregnant and so poor, desperately looking for some place to stay, only to hear the words, “No place”...”No room”...”Better go somewhere else.”
But if truth be known, that might not be the case at all, for the Jews in Jesus’ day weren’t cold, heartless, or cruel like anyone might think. As one author put it, “These were not barbaric people or aboriginal tribes that sent their women off into the jungle to have their babies alone on a banana leaf. They were civilized, intelligent, educated and, above all, hospitable people who cared deeply about human life.”
Or as another author put it, “I don’t know how people were raised in Bible days, but if a stranger came to my house when I was young, and she was pregnant and about to give birth, my father and mother would have made me give up my bed, and I would have been the one sleeping in the barn with the animals.”
Even more, in Bible times, hospitality was essential. It was a “must.” For example, in the book of Deuteronomy, God told the Israelites to “Love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Deuteronomy 10:19). And Leviticus chapter 19 says, “The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself” (Leviticus 19:33).
To deny anyone, especially a young, pregnant woman a place to eat, sleep and stay, especially one who’s about to give birth, would have been a disgrace!
Besides, Bethlehem was Joseph’s ancestral home, making him a direct descendant of the great King David himself!
In the words of author Ken Bailey: “My thirty-year experience with villagers in the Middle East is that the intensity of honor shown to the passing guest is still very much in force, especially when it’s a returning son of the village who is seeking shelter. We have observed cases where a complete village has turned out in a great celebration to greet a young man who has suddenly arrived unannounced in the village, which his grandfather had left many years before.”
Put it all together, and you can’t help but see that it would have been an unthinkable and unimaginable insult to societal decency for Joseph, a returning village son, and his laboring wife to be sent out to give birth in some cold, lonely stable. This simply could not be what happened.
So what actually happened?
Believe it or not, quite a lot hinges on that little word, “inn.” As Luke wrote, “There was no place for them in the inn” (Luke 2:7).
Well, what’s an inn?
When we hear that word, we tend to think of “Bethlehem Holiday Inn,” or “The Greater Jerusalem Hampton Inn” or the Ramada Inn. We tend to think of a nice four-story building just off the freeway, with freshly trimmed shrubs and a paved parking lot, a large lobby, a pool and a hot tub, free breakfast, Wifi and cable TV. To us, roughing it is what happens when there’s only one ice machine, and it’s all the way down on the first floor.
But that’s likely not Bethlehem’s “inn” at all. The town was just too small and too out of the way to have anything like a Holiday Inn.
Even more, Luke, the one who wrote this gospel account, was very specific when he recorded this text. He was, after all, a doctor, a physician, a scientist. He interviewed eyewitnesses. He double- checked every one of his sources. He was absolutely sure to get it right.
That’s why, when he wrote of Jesus’ birth, he didn’t use the word, “pandocheion,” like he did in the parable of the Good Samaritan. That was an “inn.” Instead, here, he used the word, “kataluma.”
Now you can translate that word “kataluma” as “inn.” Many translations do. But that’s really not the best translation. A better translation would be “guestroom” or “guest chamber.” And that changes everything!
As a matter of fact, the International Standard Version is one of only a few translations to get it right. It says: “She wrapped Him in strips of cloth and laid Him in a feeding trough, because there was no place for them in the guest quarters” (Luke 2:7).
So what must have happened, as we give it our best guess, is that, when Mary and Joseph first came to Bethlehem, the town was already filled up. It was, after all, census time, and everyone did everything they could to accommodate the many who had come. Living rooms were full. Guest rooms were full. And there wasn’t even a couch to be had in anyone’s house.
So under the circumstances, the best place and the only place to give birth wouldn’t have been in the middle of anyone’s house. Instead, it would have been in a place far from prying eyes and wondering ears. Sure there was an ox, a couple of lambs and a donkey. Sure, there was a manger filled with straw. But it was a quiet place, a solitary place--a place where Mary could give birth to her first-born Son.
So you see, this “innkeeper,” really wasn’t such a bad guy after all, for under the absolute worst of circumstances, he really did all that he could. He found space. He made room. Then wonder of wonders, God took that room, as small as it was, then made it into something infinitely better--a place fit for our Savior and King.
And that’s the challenge and the opportunity for each of us today--find space. Make room. For Christ, our Savior, has come.
In the words of C.S. Lewis, “Think of a diver glancing deep into the water, then gone with a splash, vanished, rushing down through green and warm water into black and cold water, down through the increasing pressure into the deathlike region of ooze and slime and old decay, and then back up again, back to color and light, his lungs almost bursting until suddenly he breaks the surface again, holding in his hand the dripping, precious thing he went down to recover.”
And that dripping, precious thing, he said, is you and me.
Yet even that metaphor breaks down, because when God took the plunge, He didn’t just get wet. He grew gills and became a fish. God became man, born in the very same way you and I were born, and raised in a human family.
And while so many might think that the Incarnation is like the phone booth in a Superman movie, and Jesus is like Clark Kent, He didn’t simply clothe Himself in His humanity to hide His divinity. He was fully human. And neither did the bullets bounce off Christ. He had real hurts. He cried real tears. And He did it because only as a real Man could He save us.
Do you want to know how much God loves you? He loves you so much that though He was Immanuel, God with us, He came crawling on His hands and knees as a baby. And if this One so powerful and so mighty would come into our world to die for our sin, we cannot trifle with the evil that killed our best Friend.
Can you, will you, open your door and let Him in?
We thank You, dear Father, for Jesus. And we thank You for the good news that Christmas brings. Open our hearts that we may let Him in, for His sake. Amen