Luke 2: 6, 7

For having never even been mentioned in Scripture, the infamous innkeeper sure has managed to go down in Christian annals as quite the Christmas villain.  In all likelihood, he was probably just doing his job.  Most likely he owned the place, or was a family member of the owner, and was turning away all inquiring travelers. 

For those unfamiliar with the story, Caesar Augustus had ordered a census to be taken of the entire Roman Empire.   To carry this out in an orderly fashion all subjects were required to return to their home town to register.  There was undoubtedly massive traffic as people from all over the Roman world made trips back to their homeland.   Imagine the logjam that a similar scenario would cause in today’s world if the President required all U.S. citizens to return to their place of birth!

So Joseph, along with every other Roman subject, was returning to his homeland, from Nazareth in Galilee to Bethlehem in Judea (Luke 2: 4).  Accompanying him on his journey was Mary, his betrothed.  Though a virgin, she was in the advanced stages of pregnancy, and the going must have been agonizingly slow.  To say the least, travel back then was just a little bit different than it is now.  It’s not like Joseph could load up the minivan with their bags, situate his pregnant wife comfortably in the backseat, and hit the interstate. 

They had to travel by foot over roughshod roads.  Even if you believe the legend that they had a donkey (like the innkeeper, a donkey is never actually mentioned in Scripture), the journey must have been made at a crawling pace.  Ladies, imagine being eight months pregnant and having to ride a foul-smelling ass over many hard miles.  My wife, Karen, recently gave birth and I cannot imagine having to make such a trip with her in any state, much less with her ready to deliver a newborn! 

Anyways, I imagine that they were a little behind the initial rush for lodging due to these conditions.  So they were tired, dirty, sweaty, and sore and Mary was on the verge of giving birth and they couldn’t secure a place to stay.  I’m sure they exhausted all possible options before taking up the innkeeper on his offer of the stable.  Set aside for a moment the deep humility and meaning of Christ trading Heaven’s glorious Throne Room for a dirty, unsanitary, smelly animal shelter.  Forget what it meant for our Savior and Lord to be born in a place reeking of animal dung and urine, noisy with barnyard animals, and most certainly infested with fleas and rodents.  And ask yourself this: What makes us any better than the innkeeper?

He was just doing his job.  I’m quite sure he was completely unaware of the identity of Mary’s unborn baby. Yet, as Christians with full knowledge of whom the Lord Jesus Christ is, we often relegate Him to the outer reaches of our consciousness, telling our Lord we have no room for Him in our hearts during this busy season.

We are quick to denounce secular institutions like businesses and municipalities for forgetting the “reason for the season,” but how can we blame them when the church has done the same.  We busy ourselves with shopping, gift buying, decorating, baking, parties, and picture taking but fail to take this opportunity to meditate on the birth of our Savior and Lord.  We criticize society for celebrating a cheap and hollow version of Christmas but then turn around and tell our kids about Santa Claus and show them by our actions that Christmas is all about the presents and good cheer. 

Think about it.  What do you spend more time doing each December?  Meditating on God’s word, studying it and savoring every morsel of truth about the gift of salvation manifest in the Christ child or trying to find the perfect gift for your fifty closest friends and family? I’m not saying that gift giving and cookies and Santa Claus are bad in and of themselves but we need to be so careful of what exactly we’re telling God and the watching world with our lives.  Christmas worship should be about so much more than a Christmas Eve candlelight service.  The meaning of Christmas is so much more than just acknowledging it’s Jesus’ birthday.

What is the true meaning then?  The true meaning of Christmas is simple: God sent us a Savior.  He did this so we might enjoy everlasting fellowship with our Almighty Creator rather than being rightfully sentenced to an eternity of experiencing God’s wrath for our sinful rebellion.

Christmas is about wrath, judgment, mercy and grace.  The last chapter of the Old Testament, Malachi 4, speaks of God’s coming wrath against the wicked:

“For behold, the day is coming,
      Burning like an oven,
      And all the proud, yes, all who do wickedly will be stubble.
      And the day which is coming shall burn them up,”
      Says the LORD of hosts,

“That will leave them neither root nor branch.” (Malachi 4:1)

Those are God’s last words to the Hebrews for four hundred years.  For four centuries, the nation of Israel was left to ponder this passage as it struggled against Roman dominion and rule.  The next word from God is the first chapter of Matthew announcing Jesus’ birth.  Hope! Mercy! Salvation!  Understand this my Gentile friends, without the coming of the Messiah we would be burning for all of eternity together, and justifiably so.  We deserve death and condemnation, but the Lord, in all His goodness sent us a gift, His Holy Son.  And that is the real meaning of Christmas.

So this season make sure you don’t echo the innkeeper’s famous refrain of “no room.”  Unlike him, we can’t use ignorance as an excuse.