“And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.” (Luke 2:7)
There was no place for them. No room.
This year I find myself wondering a bit more about that particular detail of Luke’s Christmas story. Of course, it sets up one of our most cherished, enduring images of Christmas, depicted in art, in song, in countless home nativity sets: the stable with the holy family tucked inside, with animals looking on in wonder, and shepherds humbly kneeling, and the baby sweetly sleeping in his manger bed.
But that all takes place after what happens at the inn. After the tired, footsore man comes to the door, asking for lodging. After the innkeeper looks past him to the laboring young woman standing next to their donkey, bracing herself against its flank, breathing through another contraction. After the innkeeper tells them she has no room.
The innkeeper is, I imagine, a woman of the world. She has provided shelter for scores of travelers. Some have been delightful and easy guests, who appreciated her hospitality and paid on time; while others have, as Rumi, the poet, would say, “violently swept her house”,[i] leaving chaos in their wake. Over the years she has learned to size people up pretty quickly. And this couple – well, she can just tell. There is trouble ahead for them. She can see that they are marked for sorrow.
And because she has had plenty of her own – sorrow, that is – because she herself has suffered and lost precious things, because she knows how hard that can be on the heart, she’d just as soon they don’t stay with her. Easier to not let them in. She doesn’t have space for that...(read more)
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