“Love Makes Room”

Luke 2:1-20

In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. All went to their own towns to be registered. Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.
In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.” And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying,
“Glory to God in the highest heaven,
and on earth peace among those whom God favors!”
When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.” So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger. When they saw this, they made known what had been told to them about this child; and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.

The Christmas story is always a relevant one. No matter what is going on in our world, we find a way into this story. Throughout Advent, we’ve been going through a series asking the question, “How does a weary world rejoice?”-- a nod to the line from the great hymn, O Holy Night, and an unrelentingly relevant question for our weary world and community. Once you look for weariness in Luke’s gospel, it seems to show up all over the nativity story– from Elizabeth and Zechariah’s weariness from years of infertility to the weariness of all the Jewish people living under Roman oppression and occupation, this is certainly a world in need of a Savior. This is my first, and almost certainly only, time being a pregnant pastor during Advent and I have found it to be one of the most meaningful experiences of my life. I have felt Elizabeth’s joy as John jumped in her womb when own children have kicked me, each on their own side. I have felt Mary’s surprise and trepidation at a future she did not expect or ask for. And I have felt the physical weariness of being a pregnant woman who also has a busy life to live. It has been a holy privilege to share this journey with you and I thank you for allowing me to do so.

So it is easy for me to imagine the weariness that Mary and Joseph felt as they rode those last miles into Bethlehem. Mary, weary from being so pregnant she probably felt like she would explode. Joseph, weary from months of judgment and questions Mary’s pregnancy and why on earth he would still be engaged to her. Both of them, weary from being forced to leave their home at a desperately inconvenient time because their Roman oppressors required them to be registered so they could more effectively be taxed to pay for their own oppression. They must have been so weary, not just from their travels but from the subjugation of their people. And then, of course, the weariness from finding no room for them in the inn. 

You know the story well– there was no room in the inn and so they had the baby in the stable. That’s what we’ve always said. Every nativity set and children’s book depicts the Holy Family relegated to that cold and drafty stable with lots and lots of hay around them. But what if that’s not the only way to interpret this story? What if there’s another way this holy night might have happened? For, you see, Luke doesn’t say he was born in a stable, he only says Jesus was laid in a manger. And what if we don’t know quite enough about Palestinian home construction or hospitality customs to rightly assume that means they were cast out into the cold by an unwelcoming town? 

What if something different occurred and what if it could completely change the way we understand Jesus’ entrance into this world? I owe a great debt to New Testament scholar Kenneth Bailey, whose analysis and interpretation has blown my mind and radically changed my understanding of Christmas. For, you see,  Mary and Joseph were not showing up at a Best Western to find that all the rooms were booked. They were coming to Joseph’s ancestral town. These were his people in every sense of the word. In order to see this story in a new light, we need to understand two important things– Palestinian architecture of the 1st century and the hospitality customs that accompanied this kind of home design.

Let’s start with the inn, for Luke says “there was no room in the inn.” Without getting too far into a lesson on ancient Greek that no one signed up for on Christmas Eve, I will say that the Greek word kataluma, does not mean a hostel or inn, but a guest room. It’s the same word used for the kind of room Jesus will eat the Last Supper in, later in Luke’s gospel. It is a room for special guests that is attached to a family home. In fact, the updated version of the NRSV that came out in 2022 actually translates it as “guest room.”  And so, we can understand this to mean that since the kataluma was occupied, the holy family ended up in the room where the manger was. Which was where exactly? 

As it turns out, homes built during Biblical times were built as one room homes, in a split level design. There was a small, lower level for the animals at one end and about 80 percent of the room was a raised terrace on which the family cooked, ate and lived. The two levels were connected by a short set of stairs and the animals were brought into the lower level each night to sleep. In the morning, they were taken out again into the courtyard, the area was cleaned and the house was ready for the day. The bible actually makes lots of references to how animals are brought in and out of the house every day, which are only now starting to make sense to me. And, the last thing we must understand is that mangers were not a portable structure like our nativity sets, but were built into the floor of the raised terrace where the family lived so that if a cow or donkey were hungry at night, it could stand and reach the feed on the floor of the upper family living space.

And so now, when we read Luke 2 and we hear, “she laid him in a manger” and we think, “Ah, so they are in the family room! Why aren’t they in the guest room?” and then Luke, knowing the inevitable question, tells us, “because there was no room in the guest room!” And we say, “Well, the family room is a more appropriate place for her to give birth anyway.”

What if Jesus wasn’t born in a cold, lonely stable? What if Jesus was born in the living room of an extended family they’d never even met but who welcomed them in anyway? For that is exactly what they would have done. What if the start of Jesus’ life on earth is not about lonely rejection about how love came into the world and the world made room for it? The weary world was longing for love and love came. 

Jesus’ adult ministry was all about building his beloved community of disciples and followers who wanted to see how to make God’s kingdom come on earth as it is in Heaven. I’ve always thought that Jesus’ gift for this kind of community building was a product of his divine nature, but as I re-examine the nativity story, I see that it does not necessarily take skill or talent or even divine nature to draw lonely people together. Jesus did it before he even entered the world. Babies are profoundly good at building community. There is a reason we love to throw baby showers, make baby blankets, or buy those teeny tiny newborn clothes that we know they’ll immediately grow out of but we just can’t help it. Babies draw people together just because of who they are. They demand and inspire love. 

Of course, love is a huge interruption. Anyone who has given or been present at a birth knows it is messy business, especially if it happens in your living room. I imagine it was far from a silent night for whomever their host family was. Everyone’s plans were thrown out the window as they adjusted to make room for this tiny new life that entered the world. But in the chaos, in the disrupted plans, in the strangers showing up in their living room, a community of love was formed. It was a night so transformative that everyone went away amazed. It was worth the grand interruption. 

  Perhaps that is how Christ began his time on earth– drawing together a group of strangers and allowing them to be part of this holy night. A distant family who got to serve as hosts and midwives. A group of shepherds who know that the savior the angels told them about was born in a house that probably looked just like their humble homes. Young parents who are not alone in this task of raising this child. 

People of God, I don’t want to ruin your Christmas story. I don’t want to tell you that Jesus definitely wasn’t born in a stable or that all your beloved nativity sets are wrong! I want us to ask, “but what if…?” For if we let ourselves imagine, we will see that the story of Jesus’ birth is a story of how love makes room. Love crashes down our barriers and prejudices and makes room for those who need it. Love is messy and holy and absolutely necessary. And that, my friends, is the good news of the gospel. The good news is that there is room for you– room for you in this world, room for you in God’s family, room for in this life and one yet to come. There is room because love has come and it has come for you. Let the people of God say, “Amen.”