Do You Have Room? - Luke 2:1-7

Bible Study Lesson for December 23

One of my pastor friends has been asking a question about the Christmas story that had never occurred to me before. Where are Mary and Joseph’s families? Why aren’t they together for the birth of Baby Jesus? I think the reality this Christmas of so many people isolated from family has made some pastors sensitive to this often unexplored dimension of the story. It’s hard to make much of an argument beyond what the Bible says, and the absence of family is a detail that the story doesn’t dwell upon. 

In Luke, we are told that the Holy Family returns to Bethlehem because it is Joseph’s ancestral home. We would expect Joseph and Mary to find refuge among Joseph’s kin, but instead we have the image of the couple trying to check in at a local inn, only to find that every room is booked. This is surprising, because I think it’s the only time in the Bible we have characters seeking hospitality from a business instead of on the basis of relationship. Why do Joseph and Mary need to sleep in a public lodging? Why are they so desperate that they are willing to accept accommodation among the animals?

Perhaps Joseph’s family was unwilling to accept him because Mary got pregnant before marriage. If we follow Matthew’s telling of the story, Joseph may have even confided to his family that the child wasn’t his, when he was planning to “dismiss Mary quietly” (Matthew 1:19). If Joseph’s family didn’t approve of the union, this could have put Mary and Joseph in a precarious position. I imagine Joseph arguing with his father after deciding to follow the angel’s command, his father concerned about the disgrace this marriage would bring to the family.

Spanish-speaking Christians celebrate a holiday called Las Posadas during the nine days before Christmas. During the festival of Las Posadas, a couple plays Mary and Joseph and leads a procession to one house every night for nine nights. When they arrive, they are initially refused at each house, but then the hosts provide refreshments and they hold a small worship service together. The first part of the ritual is important because it encourages us to remember that the Nativity includes the famous line “because there was no room for them in the inn.” Jesus came into this world rejected by his extended family like so many children today. We never see any of Joseph’s family mentioned in connection with Jesus. Perhaps they never found room for this Holy Child in their lives.

There is a story of a church nativity play that has almost become legendary among pastors looking for a poignant climax to their Christmas sermons. According to the story, a boy named Johnny came to the church’s nativity practice, and the leaders had a hard time finding a place for him. Indeed, Johnny was an enthusiastic child, but larger and louder than the other children. He didn’t fit in as a shepherd or wise man because he dwarfed the other boys. So they proposed an ingenious solution. Johnny could be the innkeeper! His job was to come out of the inn when the Holy Couple came to the door, declare “No room in the inn!” and to point them to the stable. The night of the performance came around and it came to Johnny’s part. He walked out of the inn and looked at the young girl playing Mary, in her robe with a pillow stuffed under her shirt to make her look pregnant and a little dust makeup on her face to demonstrate the hard travel from Nazareth to Bethlehem. Johnny looked at her and he tried to say his line: “No room in the inn!” But as the couple turned to go to the stable, he broke down and said, “Wait, if you like you can have my room!” 

In our loneliness and our isolation this Christmas, many of us will spend a lot of time mourning over the traditions we’ve had to modify or put on hold for the year. But the invitation for us is to remember that first Christmas, Joseph and Mary isolated in the stable, waiting for the coming of the Baby. Do we have room for Jesus? Maybe this year, more than ever, we do.

Consider the words of the old hymn:

Though Christ a thousand times

In Bethlehem be born,

If He’s not born in thee

Thy soul is still forlorn.

The Cross on Golgotha,

Will never save thy soul;

The Cross in thine own heart,

Alone can make thee whole.

O, Cross of Christ, I take thee

Into this heart of mine,

That I to my own self may die

And rise to thy life Divine.