This post first appeared on Christmas Eve in 2013.
Comments are closed on this busy and blessed day.
Merry Christmas to all of our Villagers.
We pray for you daily as you are the presents in our life.
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| Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. |
Where is Jesus? by Pam Hillman
Two weeks ago, we went to a stockholders’ meeting at a local
stockyard. The Shriner's cooked the meal: melt-in-your-mouth steaks, baked
potatoes cooked to perfection, salad, yummy desserts and sweet tea. We enjoyed
the food, the conversation with our neighbors, a short devotion, then a
business meeting to present and vote on the minutes and the financial accounts
for the stockholders. All neat and tidy.
You know how those meetings generally are, don’t you? Fairly boring, other than the food. But on this night the speaker really made an impact on me.
He talked about the birth of Jesus. Specifically about the
innkeeper. Did you know that the Bible never actually mentions the innkeeper?
The scripture says that baby Jesus was born in a manger because there was no room
in the inn. That’s it.
It doesn’t say that the innkeeper turned them away because
there were ten other men standing there with money that Joseph didn’t have. It
doesn’t say that the innkeeper looked at the poor couple, at their tattered
clothes, dusty, dirty feet, smudged faces, greasy lank hair and slammed the
door in their faces. It doesn’t say that he saw that they were from Nazareth and deliberately
turned them away.
It doesn’t say that the innkeeper saw Joseph and his very
expectant wife, stroked his beard, checked the stars and thought, hmmm, I
wonder if this could be the Christ Child, and so that scripture can be
fulfilled, I must put them in the stable.
Scripture doesn’t mention the innkeeper at all, but he’s
been vilified in countless stories, songs, and plays as a heartless man who
didn’t care about Mary and Joseph or baby Jesus.
And I don’t get the feeling that Joseph puffed out his chest
and insisted that his wife was carrying the Son of God, and that they deserved
the best room in the inn. I’m certain Mary didn’t say anything either, because
she “kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart.”
We know the inn was bursting at the seams. Seems like the
innkeeper was doing his best to provide some kind of lodging for every one who
came to his door. At least he gave them a place to stay. Or what if he didn’t
send them to the stable? What if he didn’t even know they were in there? If
that’s the case, he would have had every right to throw them out into the
streets, but he didn’t. Is it possible that a stable in Bethlehem
might have even been as nice as Joseph and Mary’s own home in Nazareth?
So, what do we really know about the innkeeper? How can we
get all mad at a man who might not even have known about the baby and certainly
didn’t know who this baby was?
It’s entirely possible (even likely) the innkeeper didn’t have an inkling of the events
unfolding in his stable that night until the shepherds showed up, and the
scripture doesn’t include him or anyone from his household even then. Did the
shepherds show up that very night and then leave before daybreak? If so, the
exhausted innkeeper was probably asleep in his bed, resting up for another busy
day at the inn. Clueless to the events unfolding in his stable.
Regardless of what he knew, how much he knew, and when he
knew it, there was a place for Jesus in the innkeeper’s busy, hectic,
stress-filled life on Christmas Eve.
We, dear friends, are blessed beyond measure, because we are
not clueless. We know the whole story and still ... I wonder….
Where did we put Jesus on this blessed Christmas Eve?
Have a lovely Christmas Eve.-Your Seeker friends.
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| The Great Christmas Tree Tour |
