We’ll call him “Joe,” a traveling salesman who was sleeping in his motel room late one night when he was rousted by a knock on the door. He looked through the peephole and saw the desk attendant. He opened the door, blinking in the hallway light.

“Sir,” the hotel employee said, “there is a couple here who need a place to stay. She’s quite pregnant. Is there any chance they could have your room?”

It’s 3:30 a.m. and Joe had had a long day traveling. He was exhausted when he got to the room. Before falling asleep he had watched the late edition of SportsCenter before finally, blessedly, drifting off to sleep. Now here he was, bleary-eyed, being asked by this stranger to give up his room.

“Are you kidding me?” Joe bellowed, causing the hotel worker to cringe. “I paid for this room, and I’m tired. Good night.”

“Please, sir,” the desk attendant said. “The woman is extremely uncomfortable. We need a bed for her to rest. You are the only single male in the place tonight. We will refund your money; we will let you sleep on a couch in one of the meeting rooms, free of charge. We’ll give you breakfast. But there is no other place for this young couple this evening. Please?”

Joe looked at the motel employee and sighed. He made a decision. That decision was: (A) He closed the door and climbed back into bed, trying to get some badly needed sleep. The pregnant woman was not his problem, or (B) He said, “Give me a second to get my stuff together, and they can have the room.” He figured he could give up one night’s sleep for a woman and her husband in such obvious need.

The Best He Could Do

The value of a story, particularly a Bible story, is the ability to put oneself into it, to learn something from it. Taking liberties with the time element (we don’t know exactly what an inn was like in first-century Palestine, but we do know what it’s like to stay at a Ramada), we can try to imagine what we would do if confronted with Joseph and Mary and their need for shelter.

What we really need to do is redeem the innkeeper. The image of the callous innkeeper, the man who denied a room to the Christ child—or to any child, for that matter—persists, and it is not fair.

The Scripture account in the second chapter of Luke doesn’t mention an innkeeper. He’s more an implied presence. If a basketball player is called for a foul, we assume there was a referee. If there was no room at the inn, we assume there was an innkeeper who said so.

We are told merely that Mary wrapped the child in cloths—the “swaddling clothes” of the King James Version—and placed him in a manger. She did that because there was no room in the inn.

Did it ever occur to you that the innkeeper may have done everything he could have done?

Not Many Choices

It was census time. The government sent everyone back to where they came from. Joseph was related to David, the legendary king, and so he had to report to Bethlehem—the city of David.

Hundreds of others, maybe thousands of others, had to report to Bethlehem. The pregnant lady required a much more leisurely pace on the donkey ride; everybody else got to town first and beat them to the choice accommodations.

When they arrived, Joseph knew his espoused wife was in some degree of distress. Leaving her for a moment, he almost certainly tried to get a room. Let’s assume for a minute that the innkeeper tried to get someone to give up his room, as in our scenario. Let’s assume that the request fell on deaf ears—that Joe chose (A) and closed the door and went back to sleep.

So what did the innkeeper do? He looked at the woman in pain and the man in panic and made them an offer.

“Listen,” he said. “There’s probably room in the back with the animals. It’s not much, and the smell will probably get to you, but at least you’ll be out of the cold and have a roof over your head. It’s the best I can do.”

The best he could do.

We’re never told that Joseph and Mary complained. It was better than staying in the street. And when Mary delivered her child, she was probably glad she had a manger to put him in.

What Should We Do?

The statement is credited to John Wesley: “Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can.” Jesus himself put it this way in Matthew 7:12: “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you.”

We have to give our unnamed innkeeper credit: From what we know of the story, he did all the good he could do.

At Christmas, and always, so should we.

Dave Schultz is a freelance writer in Huntington, Indiana.

This column first appeared in the Huntington Herald-Press, Huntington, Indiana.

OUTLOOK is a forum for responsible Christian writers. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of Standard Publishing or The Lookout.

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