No Room at the Inn

Luke 2:1-7

I haven't lived in my home town for close to 15 years now.  When we go back there, we stay with my mom.  She's got a big place to herself.  My brother lives there now, and I'm sure he'd let us sleep in the basement or something if we needed to.  I still have an assortment of friends there that would put us up in a pinch, even though I don't see them very often.  In my hometown, I wouldn't be in any danger of having to stay in a stable.  Two of my kids were born somewhere different than we live now.  They'd probably have a bit of a tougher time finding a spot in the place where they were born.  But I'm sure they could rustle up something.

The text doesn't really say that Joseph was from Bethlehem here, just that he was from the line of David.  But he surely must have had some sort of relatives there.  And in a culture that prides itself on its hospitality, could he and his pregnant wife not find a spot more agreeable than a stable?  I think if you read between the lines, it wasn't that there wasn't any room at all... there wasn't any room for them.  The disgraceful couple who weren't married, but were pregnant.  That's the sort of thing that would get you into the proverbial doghouse, or in this case the donkey/sheep house.

We look back and think how fortunate they had any place to stay at all.  We put up little creches with ceramic characters to commemorate the occasion.  But, just as the cross was a symbol of shame turned into a symbol of victory by Jesus, so too is the manger he was laid in a symbol of shame, that has become a symbol of joy because of His birth.