Rusty Mullins
In my last column, I spoke about two of the nativity characters – the angels and the shepherds.
In this edition, I want to concentrate on an individual who I fear is often misunderstood – the innkeeper.
Mary and Joseph, unwed and both likely in their teens, were traveling from their hometown of Nazareth to Bethlehem for the purpose of registering for taxes. They were not traveling to visit loving relatives, they were not on the road to a baby shower being thrown in their honor – no, they were being forced to travel by a foreign government to the town Joseph’s family called home, Bethlehem, because Joseph was of the line of David.
We often see in works of art Mary riding on a donkey. Actually, if you read the text, there is no mention of an animal of any kind during their journey. Many scholars say that it is much more likely that Mary walked the roughly 80-mile trip. If that is the case, wow, what a feat by the young mother-to-be.
When they arrived in Bethlehem, normally a very sleepy village, there was not room for them in likely the only place willing to house travelers in that small town. It may be hard for us to understand the situation they were facing – no way to call ahead for a reservation, no easy way to travel, no safety net for them in the former hometown of Joseph’s family.
After the innkeeper informed them that there was no vacancy in his establishment, he offered a stable in his barn. Not quite the Westin of Bethlehem, but it was a place for them to rest. I am sure that Mary, knowing that the time was getting close, was open to any place to lay her head to rest.
Some give the innkeeper a hard time. How can you turn away a woman who is expecting a baby any minute? Why would he not be willing to give up his room?
There is a story told about a children’s nativity play that was done at a church. All the parts had been given out, but the teenager they called Happy, who suffered from Down’s Syndrome, wanted to be in the production.
The director said he could be the innkeeper. Happy attended practice and had did a fantastic job of delivering his one line – “There is no room in the inn.”
In a packed church on Christmas Eve, the fellow church youth portraying Mary and Joseph knocked on the set door of the “inn”. Joseph gave a short soliloquy about their desperate situation. Happy looked into the eyes of his friends playing the desperate couple and froze – seemingly unable to deliver his line. The director tried to feed him the line, but it didn’t work. After a few seconds of agonizing quiet, a smile broke out on Happy’s face. The fellow actors and the audience assumed that Happy had remembered his line. Instead, Happy changed his line – “Come on in. You can have my room.”
That kind of altered the rest of the play. Happy simply could not turn away his friends in need.
I don’t know if the innkeeper was distracted and missed the chance to have Jesus born in his inn. Maybe the stable was actually the best he could do at that time.
Regardless, let’s learn from the innkeeper and not miss the reason for the season: Jesus!
