Everyone who knows me knows I LOVE CHRISTMAS! I love everything about it. I love the sounds, the smells, the colors, the lights, the sparkle, the music, the movies. But above all I love Jesus and I love birthdays and on Christmas we get to celebrate the best birthday EVER.
And I have always LOVED nativity scenes. I love to look and think about all the people who were there and recently have been pondering those who weren’t there (priests, rich folk (until the magi showed up later), tons of people celebrating the long awaited Messiah).
Up until very recently my favorite story line of the nativity is the shepherds. Think about it, God revealed the birth of His Son not to a bunch of priests or church folk, but to a group of smelly, very bored men who were sitting in a field just doing their job. I think of what it would have been like to be sitting out in the middle of nowhere, protecting a bunch of dumb, smelly animals who were destined for death as sacrifices at the temple (irony) when suddenly the sky explodes (I have a picture in my brain that it looked kind of like when the aliens spaceship showed up in the movie Independence Day) and angels are there.
SERIOUSLY..angels…there…singing and announcing and singing and praising…and singing. I want to hear that song!!!!!!!!
Yeah, I say that but I would have probably been a scared as pee-less as the shepherds were. We are so used to and immune to the story these days that in our brains it seems normal…”Angels showing up singing? Sure, that sounds about right to me.” If you really think about it for a minute, I guarantee…..you would be scared. out. of. your. everlovin’. mind!
I think about them running towards Bethlehem. Getting to the stable. I wonder if they burst right in or if they paused outside wondering if the people inside were going to think they were nuts. I think about them seeing Jesus for the first time. Did they cry? Did they sing? Did they faint? Did they fall on their face in worship” Did they do all 4 of those things all at the same time?
How long did they stay? Did they even want to leave? What did people say when they left and ran through town smiling, full of God, and headed back to their jobs?
Ok, if you caught it I said until recently the shepherds were my favorite character but I have a new one that just last weekend rose up to tie for first place…
The innkeeper.
WHAT??? The guy who wouldn’t let huge and pregnant, waddling Mary have a nice warm bed in his house? Yep..that guy and here’s why….
This guy was not the manager at the Holiday Inn with 200 room available. This guy was probably a guy with a house with rooms for rent. And then Caesar made that crazy decree and TONS of people had to travel to Bethlehem. Bethlehem wasn’t even a 1 horse town. It probably wasn’t even a 1 pig town. Maybe a 1 chicken town…it was tiny. It would be like 20,000 people coming to stay for a while in the tiniest town in Texas (and folks, there are some tiny towns in Texas! I’ve been to one that was 1 block big). With a lack of rooms… rooms are going to get filled up quick. There were no advanced reservations. There was no calling ahead. First come, first serve. So the innkeeper didn’t lose Mary and Joseph’s reservation. He had no idea they were even coming. So his rooms got all filled up before they came.
The innkeeper could have told Mary on Joseph they had to go outside of town and camp like tons of other folks had to do but he didn’t. The innkeeper had compassion on this greatly pregnant teen and her man. He gave what he had to give. STOP…read that again! He gave what he had to give. He wasn’t being a Scrooge. He wasn’t being a mean ol’ cuss. He was GIVING and gave what He could.
I have to admit…this thought is not original to my pea sized brain. I got it last weekend from an awesome message at church. And it made me think (which is what happens when God is in a message…it hangs on to you and makes you think). So here’s what I’m thinking….The stable was enough. God didn’t send a lightning bolt to strike down the innkeeper because he didn’t give something better. Jesus was born in that stable because that was exactly what was supposed to happen.
God used what the innkeeper had to give. God didn’t require more. God didn’t say “Do better”. God didn’t say “How dare you only give me this smelly place”. God used that smelly place to bring His Son into this world.
If God could use the smelly barn that the innkeeper was willing to give Him…what could He do if I give Him the smelly places in my life?
Just a Christmas thought.
A Beautiful Mess 