Ensign: Four Days To Christmas, The Innkeeper's Tale

All ye inhabitants of the world, and dwellers on the earth, see ye, when he lifteth up an ensign on the mountains; and when he bloweth a trumpet, hear ye. Isaiah 18:3

AN ENSIGN ON THE MOUNTAINS 21 December 2012

I don't want you to miss it, I know I have before
Like the innkeeper who missed the wonder right outside his door
So open up your heart as Christmas passes through
Just in time to wake the child asleep inside of you

Jason Gray's “Christmas Is Coming”

No disrespect meant to any of this year's slew of Christmas carols and offerings, but so often it seems (our church's Sunday school program was an all-too-rare exception) the role of the innkeeper, who according to Luke 2:7 afforded Joseph and Mary a manger for Jesus to be born into, gets mentioned as a bad person. And the innkeeper himself isn't even mentioned, see the verse:

And she brought forth her first-born son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.

This slurring of the innkeeper who didn't know and had no humanly possible way of knowing – to me this year, it's a slap in the face of every businessperson. Exactly what was the innkeeper supposed to do, throw someone out (who likely had already paid for their room and were equally inconvenienced to travel to Bethlehem for this census too) to make room for Joseph and Mary and Jesus in her womb?

You don't stay in business very long if you repeatedly do that. I realize in a broader sense I'm nitpicking or it sounds like I am, but why is it so easy for us every time we hear the Nativity story to draw lessons from everyone but the innkeeper? We assume there was one, even though he himself is not mentioned at all. We have “doubting Thomas”, “denying Peter” (actually, I haven't heard that one too much), but “unbelieving innkeeper”? I say no.

It would have been easy, ridiculously easy, for the innkeeper to turn away this couple about to give birth. For all we know, this wasn't the first inn in Bethlehem where they stopped – maybe they did get turned away elsewhere – but he didn't. He gave the space that he did have, the manger where he and other guests would keep their animals (remember, no parking lots), and while it may not have been comfortable, it was warm and a place to rest.

Admittedly not MY first choice, to be born in a manger, but any port in a storm. Just imagine how Mary was feeling as Jesus' birth approached, the weight of the world coming down on her as she had to push Push PUSH P-U-S-H Jesus out … I won't go into all the detail, as I'm sure any woman would tell me I don't know what I'm talking about! But the hospitality of the innkeeper kept Jesus as a baby in one place – well, as much as a newborn baby stays in one place – until they moved out of the stable.

And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told unto them. (Luke 2:20)

And next is where nearly every Nativity scene most of us see gets it wrong. By the time Jesus was nearly two years old … and no longer a baby, He, Joseph, and Mary were living in a house in Bethlehem and got their visit from the (at least two) wise men, received the “gold, and frankincense, and myrrh”. And according to the account in the second chapter of Matthew, the wise men did not go back to Herod the client-king of the Romans over Judea, but headed back home.

And so our Nativity – literally, the story of the Birth – ends, but not our response to it. That never ends until we meet God ourselves again. And I admit it's hard to form one sometimes, especially when we base our reaction to Christmas on what we see around us – the lights, Santa, the reindeer, the presents – and a lack of them seems to indicate to others, perhaps even to ourselves, that we're not in “the holiday spirit” whatever that means. THAT'S when we need to take a step back, methinks.

What can you do this season, what can you do today, to ease someone's burden? I could cite Scripture after Scripture on that, but I'm not going to because you and I already know what we can do to bear one another's burden, to lighten someone's mood, to make ourselves just a little more the people God created us to be, someone who does whatever they can do. This Christmas, and every day. We've just gotta do it, and that's our own tale.

Merry Christmas,

David

P.S. I write this weekly devotional to keep in touch with all of you in my address book, and I hope to be an encourager to action too! If you find that I’m not or you want me to get lost, just let me know – thank you!

Thank You, Lord, that we can come to you in prayer and that You provide for all our needs, even when we don’t know what they are. We pray for the peace of Jerusalem on both sides of the fence there and around the world.

Thank You, Lord, for everyone in leadership and service, both here and abroad. Thank You for the opportunities we have and the promise of new life through You. I pray that we all seek and have a blessed week! Amen.