No Room At The Inn

I’m fascinated by nativity scenes.

I know they’re mostly historically inaccurate. I know they romanticize and condense and even fictionalize a very messy episode. I know Jesus’ birth was nothing like the shiny porcelain portrayal on the mantle.

But I’m still drawn to it as I think about Christmas. I guess, for all its idealized imagery, it’s still a visual, real, tangible likeness of a moment I can’t quite get my head around.

This morning I found myself thinking about some of the characters and wondering how I’d have responded. What if I was an ordinary resident—perhaps a businessman, maybe even an innkeeper on that once-in-eternity night?

The innkeeper isn’t immortalized in my nativity, though he’s a minor player in every Christmas pageant. I grew up picturing him as the mean guy who relegated God’s son to a stable. A pregnant young woman showed up at his door on the verge of delivering her child, and this heartless man slammed his door in her face.

Maybe. Or perhaps he did the best he could in a difficult situation.

The small town was packed with visitors. I’ll bet tempers flared as people demanded service he just couldn’t deliver. It wasn’t his fault they showed up late with no reservation.

He might have left them in the streets. Their lack of planning wasn’t his fault, right? But instead he found them a relatively safe spot inside, out of the weather and away from the noisy crowds.

Most likely there wasn’t a single “innkeeper” character. Perhaps it was a family or a number of folks who saw a young couple in need and helped as best they could. Details aren’t important.

But as I stare at the baby in the ceramic manger, I’m forced to wonder how I’d have responded.

The crowded town represented an unprecedented business opportunity. Would I have been too focused on my paying customers to see someone who needed a bit of help?

Or would crowds roaming the streets at night have driven me inside to the safety of my own home? Would I have locked my door and turned up the television? Would I have even noticed the lost young couple who’d have been happy to spend the night in my garage?

I’m reminded of something Jesus said a few years later:

The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ (Matthew 25:40)

It’s not about what happens to the characters in my nativity scene. It’s about how you and I deal with those we encounter in the everyday circumstances of our everyday lives.

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