August 31 2024

Saturday August 31

“No Room in the Inn”

Luke 2:1-7

1 And it came to pass in those days that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. 2 This census first took place while Quirinius was governing Syria. 3 So all went to be registered, everyone to his own city. 4 Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, 5 to be registered with Mary, his betrothed wife, who was with child.

6 So it was, that while they were there, the days were completed for her to be delivered. 7 And she brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling cloths, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.

Mary and Joseph have traveled some eighty miles from Nazareth to Bethlehem to be registered for the Roman census. The journey took at least three days. They finally arrived first at Jerusalem and then would have continued the five or six more miles south to Bethlehem. But when they arrived there, the place was packed. Joseph pushed his way inside the inn to beg and plead for a room for by now the birth of Jesus was imminent.

Some commentators believe that this was an inn which had a long history. It was known as Chimham's Inn (2 Sam. 19:38-40; Jer. 41:17) and was built by that loyal servant of David after he became a member of David's inner circle. (Jeremiah had spent a night there when he was being abducted and taken to Egypt many years earlier.)

Can you imagine the innkeeper seeing Mary about to have a baby and still telling Joseph that there was "No room!" "We are full. You can see that for yourself. There's not one room vacant." Then, as an afterthought, he said, "But there's the cattle shed. Maybe you could make do there."

"No room!" But that was not really true. Think about it! There was the innkeeper's own room, but he never once considered that. No indeed! Let these peasants with the Nazareth accent make do with the shed. The "cattle shed" of such an Eastern inn was often a cave, which seems to have been the case here.

So, in a rough, cold cave attached to an ancient inn, the Son of God entered into human life. Oxen shook their shaggy heads, and camels looked around with disdain. The floor was unspeakably foul. Bats flew in and out. No hot water, sanitation, or midwife was available. In the nearby inn, paying guests called for food and drink and sang songs or sought their beds.

The awesome Child was born at last. Joseph knocked some boards together to make a manger and lined it with straw, and the wondrous Child slept, wrapped in swaddling clothes. The word Luke used for "swaddling" is one of his medical terms. It means "bandages," so even in the midst of newborn life is a hint of death.

“No room!” No room for Jesus! I hope you get the picture. We read in 2 Corinthians 8:9, “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich.”  The Creator of the universes comes into this world, robed in human flesh and is born a dirty cave used for the animals of the travelers staying in the inn. The innkeeper or anyone of the travelers probably had the opportunity to give up their room for this precious Baby to be born, but they selfishly denied and rejected this awesome and wonderful privilege!

I love what Oswald Chamber says on his December 25 devotion in Utmost for His Highest: “Jesus Christ was born into this world, not from it. He did not evolve out of history; He came into history from the outside. Jesus Christ is not the best human being, He is a Being Who cannot be accounted for by the human race at all. He is not man becoming God, but God Incarnate, God coming into human flesh, coming into it from outside. His life is the Highest and the Holiest entering in at the Lowliest door. Our Lord's birth was an advent.”

“Just as Our Lord came into human history from outside, so He must come into me from outside. Have I allowed my personal human life to become a "Bethlehem" for the Son of God? I cannot enter into the realm of the Kingdom of God unless I am born from above by a birth totally unlike natural birth. "Ye must be born again." This is not a command, it is a foundation fact. The characteristic of the new birth is that I yield myself so completely to God that Christ is formed in me. Immediately Christ is formed in me, His nature begins to work through me.”

Yes, like that dirty cave, our hearts are dirty, sinful, deceitful, and desperately wicked (Jeremiah 17:9), but Jesus is willing to be born into it, cleanse it, and make all the difference in the world for you! Do you have room in your heart today for Jesus?

God bless!