{"id":6361,"date":"2016-12-22T18:11:43","date_gmt":"2016-12-22T18:11:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/snicklefritz.net\/blog\/?p=6361"},"modified":"2016-12-22T18:11:43","modified_gmt":"2016-12-22T18:11:43","slug":"the-inn-keeper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/snicklefritz.net\/blog\/?p=6361","title":{"rendered":"The Inn Keeper"},"content":{"rendered":"

And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a degree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed……….And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city.<\/em><\/p>\n

And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city, Nazareth, into Judea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem;(because he was of the house and lineage of David:) to be taxed with Mary, his espoused wife, being great with child.<\/p>\n

And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered.<\/p>\n

And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.\u00a0 KJV Luke 2:1-7<\/p>\n

No room for them in the inn.\u00a0 Has that ever happened to you?\u00a0 It has happened to David and\u00a0me.\u00a0 One time when we were traveling, we stopped in a college town to find a motel.\u00a0 We didn’t know that there was a major football\u00a0game\u00a0happening there between two rival teams and we could not find one motel with a room in that town.\u00a0 We traveled to the next town.\u00a0 Same thing. So we drove and stopped at motels and I would run in and ask, “Do you have a room?”\u00a0 and\u00a0 I was told several times, “No, sorry.”\u00a0 So we had to drive a good distance from the first town we had stopped at to find a place to lay our heads that night.\u00a0 I kind of understood how Joseph and Mary felt when they arrived in Bethlehem and they could not find a place to sleep. Plus, Mary was in her ninth month of pregnancy and was due any time.<\/p>\n

Not a whole lot has been written about the innkeeper who told them they could stay in his stable.\u00a0\u00a0 Some think he was cruel.\u00a0 Others say, “How dare he not give a room to the holy family?”\u00a0 Well, he didn’t know at the time they were a holy family.\u00a0 Only Mary and Joseph knew who the baby was that Mary was carrying.\u00a0 God’s only Son.\u00a0\u00a0 I am sure they had kept it quiet ever since they found out Mary was pregnant and still a virgin.<\/p>\n

In Bethlehem in those days, there weren’t motels and hotels like we have today.\u00a0 Most inns were probably quite small and accommodations were probably crude, at best.\u00a0 No white, fluffy towels.\u00a0 No showers.\u00a0 No bathrooms, probably.\u00a0 No little bottles of lotion and shampoo.\u00a0 So, all the inns were full to capacity\u00a0because people had come to Bethlehem to be taxed.\u00a0 The city’s inns\u00a0were overflowing, kind of like when there is a Super Bowl happening in a city and you can’t find a motel room anywhere.<\/p>\n

So, here is an innkeeper, looking at this young couple at his door. The girl(Mary was probably in her teens) was obviously pregnant and he had no more rooms to let.\u00a0 What was he to do?\u00a0 He had a stable( more like a cave) that he knew was dry and warm and had clean straw, so he gave them the choice of staying there and they took it.<\/p>\n

If you have never been in a barn, you would not know that it can be a very cozy place.\u00a0 When I was growing up. I played in my daddy’s big, red barn almost every day.\u00a0 In the Summer it was cool.\u00a0 In the Winter, it wasn’t exactly warm and toasty, but it was comfortable.\u00a0 If there were cows, pigs and my horse in it, it was warmer because of their warm bodies heating it up.\u00a0 I loved the smell of the barn.\u00a0 I would lay in the straw in the barn loft and play with kittens that were born between the hay bales.\u00a0 A stable is not the worst place you could find yourself.<\/p>\n

So Mary and Joseph went to the stable and looked around and found a manger, from which the cattle ate, probably found some straw and padded it and awaited the birth of their son.\u00a0 And when Jesus was born, they found some rags in the stable and wrapped him up in them and laid him in the manger.\u00a0 Why would God allow His son to be born in a lowly place like a stable?\u00a0 Prophets had foretold hundreds if not a thousand years before Jesus’ birth, that he would be born\u00a0to a virgin, of humble estate.\u00a0\u00a0 There are several reasons why Jesus was born in the stable, but the main one was to show the world the humbleness of the man that would be.\u00a0 That he came, not to conquer the world, but to save it.\u00a0\u00a0 It may have been God’s way of protecting\u00a0 Jesus because the king of that country was looking for the Savior and king that was to be born.\u00a0 He would never have thought of looking in a stable for a king.<\/p>\n

Anyway, I believe the inn keeper was in God’s plan.\u00a0 He provided the humble place for Jesus to be born.\u00a0 He was not mean. He did the best he could.<\/p>\n

In this glorious season celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ, and that is what Christmas is really all about, let us thank God for the wonderful blessing he gave to us that first Christmas day and say a thank you to the inn keeper who provided a safe, dry and warm place for the holy family to stay. May our hearts provide a place for Jesus in them, too.\u00a0 Bye.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a degree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed……….And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city, Nazareth, into Judea, unto the city of David, which […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faith-and-religion","category-things-on-my-mind"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/snicklefritz.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/snicklefritz.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/snicklefritz.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/snicklefritz.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/snicklefritz.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6361"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/snicklefritz.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6361\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6364,"href":"https:\/\/snicklefritz.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6361\/revisions\/6364"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/snicklefritz.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/snicklefritz.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/snicklefritz.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}