sorry, all we have are no birthing rooms left

we've all seen the CHRISTmas pageants at churches and schools.  we see the little girl playing mary and the little boy reluctantly playing joseph knock on the door of the inn and the boy with the fake beard playing the innkeeper tells them to go away, that there are no rooms left.  the innkeeper then offers them the stable out back and the young duo says ok without an argument and they go to the other side of the stage where a quaint little stable with a wooden feeding troth is waiting on them.  by this point, mary has already had her baby boy, usually a baby doll, because nobody wants to see a 5 or 6 year old girl pretending to give birth on stage!  it's all cute, and we love them, but if you go back and read the story, you will find something interesting.  there is no innkeeper in the story!  one can infer that there must have been an innkeeper, being that there was an inn, but the elusive innkeeper is not explicitly mentioned in any part of the story.  you ask the average person, though, and they will tell you that there is one in the Bible.  it becomes like the little kid who shows up at his CHRISTmas pageant with a pillow under his shirt and when his teacher asks him who he is supposed to be, he matter-of-factly tells her that he is "round john virgin"!  we end up adding more to the story than is there, much of our misinformation coming from things like children's plays and CHRISTmas carols.

while the innkeeper is not specifically mentioned by name, we can see a lot of what an innkeeper's characteristics would have been like in society today, especially at CHRISTmas time.  the town of bethlehem was a small town geographically isolated from much of the surrounding area, and the census implemented by caesar augustus would have brought a tremendous amount of commerce to the local merchants for the weeks and months during the census.  this was primarily an agricultural town, so business was limited to goods bought and sold by the local community and the occasional traveler stopping through on the way to other larger cities within palestine.  with this booming influx of business, the inns would have been full, and the last thing that an innkeeper would want was a screaming early teenage girl giving birth in one of his rooms, and making the room unclean as well as scaring off all of his guests.  so it would have been convenient for all of the rooms to be taken.  there is no validity to the misconstrued notion of mary and joseph going from inn to inn trying to find a room, since her delivery would have occurred just as they got to bethlehem (probably from either walking or riding on the back of an animal during the journey there).  so if we acknowledge that little fact, then we can reasonably assume that there was no time to go door to door. 

let me throw another proverbial monkey wrench into the story here and point out that the word used for "inn" is kataluma, which could also be translated "guestroom".  it is quite possible, and actually more probable, that mary and joseph sought lodging at a relative's house, since that was the town of joseph's family.  however, being that everyone else from his lineage would have been there, and being that mary was late in pregnancy, their journey would have been slow and they would have been the last ones to arrive, only to find all of the guest rooms with family occupied.  however, most families had a stable behind the house where they kept their most prized livestock, which mainly would have been oxen.  the family probably would have considered that to be a more suitable place for giving birth, due to the tremendous mess it caused, and allowed joseph and mary to use it for that purpose.  also, it is quite possible that the reputation of mary's unwed pregnancy would have preceded them there, so there may have been an element of keeping them out of sight, out of mind. 

regardless, the overwhelming attitudes we see in either the innkeeper or the family are quite prevalent today.  the innkeeper would have had the birth of the Messiah right at their back door, and he missed it.  he was so busy with business that he had no time for someone who interfered with his making money.  we see that today beginning at halloween and even earlier.  many businesses fall prey to seeing CHRISTmas through money colored glasses and are too busy with the commerce of the season to actually recognize what truly is being celebrated.  we see workers being forced to work long hours, and now even working on thanksgiving, to stay ahead of the competition and bring in the most capital.  especially in the united states, where CHRISTianity is the predominant religion, people are so busy with the rush of CHRISTmas that they miss the CHRIST of CHRISTmas.  so they are in effect, just like the assumed innkeeper, having CHRIST right outside their door, and they miss Him.

still others are like joseph's family.  this attitude is the most prevalent in churches.  CHRIST is just outside, but nobody bothers to make room for Him.  He is an inconvenience.  i'm sure the family went out to check on them, and possibly even went out to see the baby Jesus, but she had to lay him in a feeding troth filled with hay and ox saliva because the family did not make room for Him in the house.  Jesus even referenced this attitude in revelation 3, when He said that He stands at the door and knocks.  the sad thing is, the door He is knocking on is the door of the church!  His own church, His own family if you will, has no room for Him!  they have been doing things their own way, and for Him to come in would be a huge inconvenience because they might have to change how they are doing things. 

this year, is CHRIST in your CHRISTmas?  or are you so busy with the rush that you miss Him?  or maybe you no longer have room for Him because of all of the "tradition" and "religion" that has taken His place.  it's never too late to repent and to make room for Him.  after all, He also promises in revelation 3 that if anyone opens the door to Him, He will come in and restore the relationship.