Christmas Morning: Son Rise on a New DaySample

Christmas at our house includes a few nativity scenes. These sets include the “normal” pieces: Mary, Joseph, Jesus, angels, shepherds, animals, and magi, but also a few “extras”: a little drummer boy and the innkeeper, among others.

While the biblical accounts of Luke 2 and Matthew 2 include the normal pieces, the extras are nowhere to be found.

You may want to protest, “The little drummer boy may be made up, but the innkeeper is real! Read Luke 2:8, there is no room for them in the inn!”

Fair point.

That said, the passage does not depict a profit-hungry, villainous innkeeper saving the Presidential suite for dignitaries while sending Jesus to the barn. In order to understand this more, we need to know something of the original language and customs of the day.

The word translated “inn” in our English Bibles could also be translated “guest room.” There were hotels in the ancient world, but in a small town like Bethlehem, it is unlikely that the Holiday Inn or Hilton was in view. More likely, it was the guest room of a family member that was full.

It is important to think of the customs of the day. Houses in Israel in that era had indoor and outdoor areas. The indoor portion was where the people slept, and the outdoor portion (like a large patio-like area), would be where the animals were kept overnight. This is also where the animals were sometimes fed. Therefore, the picture Luke 2 presents of Joseph and Mary placing Jesus in the feeding trough of the animals (the manger) seems to place them in the outside portion of a family member’s home.

So what can we learn from these details? We can learn that Jesus was born in a humble situation - not in a palace, or even in a guest room, but in the lean-to where the animals were kept. Indeed, “the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:45)

Jesus humbled Himself when He came for us. Though He was not exalted in the location of His birth, He now sits exalted over all at the right hand of the Father. May we also have His mind, that we would be humble in our lives and wait for God to lift us up.