No Room at the Inn?

A Very Happy Christmas to all my Readers!

Here's a little teaser for you this Christmas Eve: Where was Jesus born (I don't mean the town, that was Bethlehem as we all know)?

"In a manger", comes your reply, loud and clear.

"Correct", say I.

BUT where was the manger? Traditionally, it has been considered to be a stable, as that is where you are likely to find a manger, which is a feeding trough for animals. It could have been in a cave. But what was the location of this?

I'm really sorry to do this, but I am going to shatter the storyline of a million nativity plays. The word translated inn (Luke 2 v 7) does not mean a local hostelry that we might consider. There is no mention of Mary and Joseph going to the door and the innkeeper saying, I have no room... but you can have this stable at the back.

Joseph's family was from Bethlehem, so they would have stayed with relatives. It is more likely that the guest rooms in the family home were already full when Mary and Joseph arrived - it would have been a long hard journey for them with Mary pregnant. They would have arrived late - the house would have been full. They would have been offered a place where the animals were kept, that is true, but it wouldn't have been a snug, cosy place. In fact, if it was a cave it could possibly be a place where people were buried, and the strips of cloth those used for wrapping dead bodies. Jesus could have started his life being wrapped in these, at the end of it he walked out of them - being raised from the dead. Just a thought....

The important thing to realise is that the baby who was born was God himself, come to earth in human form - 100% God and 100% Man. Doesn't that just blow your mind?

I'm sorry to have ruined many evangelistic messages about there being no room for Jesus in the inn, but you need to make room for him in your heart. However, the message is that God does offer us the possibility of his coming to live within us by his Holy Spirit if we trust him. That really is good news of great joy.