The Original Christmas—Part 1
What We’ve Been Missing
Matthew 2; Luke 2
Every year as Christmas draws near, pastors and churches around the world begin preparing sermons, pageants, cantatas, and a variety of other spectacles to retell the oft-told story of that very first Christmas long, long ago.
It is traditional to read about the angels, the shepherds, the wise men, no room at the inn, Joseph, Mary, the donkey, and the baby Jesus lying in a manger. It is good for us to recall the story of the birth of the Savior.
What I want to share with you beginning today and stretching over the next few weeks leading up to Christmas, is some of the lost information about those days, that culture, and the people in these stories.
What do I mean by “lost”? Well, did you know that many of the traditions surrounding the birth of Jesus do not really fit with what the text of Scripture tells us if we translate the words correctly and if we know a little about the people and the culture of the area in those days?
One example is the tradition that Jesus was born in a barn. We nice that up by calling it a “stable”, but the fact remains that millions of nativity scenes the world over—ours included—have the venue for that first Christmas taking place in a wooden lean-to. As you will see in a moment, that isn’t at all what took place.
There are several others, so let’s get started, shall we?
In every culture throughout the world, a woman giving birth is given special attention. In the towns and villages of the Middle East, which is where Judea is, the birth of a child is a much-celebrated and much-shared experience.
Imagine for a moment that a young woman in need of help and shelter at the moment of her birth were to arrive on your doorstep. Imagine that she is someone that you do not know at all. What would you do?
Why, you would insist that she come right in—along with anyone who was with her—and you would do everything you could to help her in her need, would you not? Of course you would!
Hospitality is a matter of honor and tradition in the Middle East, and it has always been so. All we need to do is look back at the story of the three strangers coming to Abraham’s camp recorded in Genesis 18, and the extravagant care he took to make them comfortable, to feed them, and to make sure that their needs were met to see how deeply ingrained in the culture hospitality toward strangers has always been. Travel there today and you will find that it is still the same, especially in the small villages.
Dare we imagine that Bethlehem in the days of Mary and Joseph would have been any different? Would a young woman on the verge of giving birth not have been provided everything she needed—and more—by the people in that small community?
Some say that the small town was overflowing with people from all over and that the resources there were stretched beyond thin. Okay, then think back to the widow who fed Elijah with the last bit of flour and oil that she had, knowing that that was the last food she had to prepare and that she and her son would die of starvation when that was gone. What was her response when Elijah asked her to make a small loaf and feed him?
Read the story again in 1 Kings 17 (this can be your homework for this week), and you will find that she resisted for only a moment, but then took Elijah at his word that there would be enough for them, so she did as he asked. And, we know that God performed a miracle for her for her faithfulness—two, in fact (you will have to read it to see).
This, and the story I mentioned from the life of Abraham, show the level of self-sacrifice people were willing to go to whenever there was a visitor to their home. Packed or not, the people of Bethlehem would not have turned Mary away.
Something else to consider is the timing of the arrival of the party from Nazareth and the birth of Jesus. Tradition has led us to the place where all of our plays and pageants telling this story have Jesus being born on the very night of the arrival of Joseph and Mary in Bethlehem.
Let’s look at Luke 2:4-6 for a moment. These verses tell us that Joseph took Mary, who was pregnant, with him to Bethlehem to be registered for the Roman tax as they and the rest of the Jews had been commanded to do.
Look closely at what verse 6 says: “While they were there, the days were completed for her to give birth.” Reading this carefully, we can see that Joseph had plenty of time to make arrangements for their stay in Bethlehem and for the delivery of the child that the angel had told them would be born.
Now, what about those arrangements? Everyone that was coming to Bethlehem at the time was coming because their family lineage was rooted in that town. We know, too, from the genealogy of Jesus found in Matthew 1:1-17, that Joseph was a descendant of the royal house of David through the line of Solomon.
Imagine again, for a moment that you live in Bethlehem back in those days. Think about the close-knit community and the sense of history that everyone who lives there has because they live in the same hometown as Israel’s most famous king, King David. Now, imagine, if you will, that Joseph and his pregnant wife come to town, looking for a place to stay.
Would you turn away a “royal” who needed shelter for him and his soon-to-give-birth young bride? Not hardly—and neither would they. How would they know he was a royal? What was he doing there? He was there for the census commanded by Rome. The edict demanded that everyone return to the hometown of their family line in order to be counted.
So, Joseph and his pregnant wife come into town, and they begin looking for a place to stay. The most normal question in the world at that time among those living and traveling to Bethlehem at the time would be, “So, what’s your line? What family are you from?” Joseph could say quite honestly that he was of the house (and lineage, as Luke puts it) of David. Nearly every home would have been open to him in hospitality, both because of the nature of the culture and because of his royal lineage.
Do you think that would have mattered to the people living there? Do you think they would have relegated a royal to spending the night in a stable, or a cave, as some traditions have it? This was Joseph’s “hometown”. He may even have had relatives still living there. And, as we see in Luke’s account, Mary had relatives (Elizabeth and Zacharias) who lived in a village close by in the same hill country (See Luke 1:39-40). They could have even found shelter there, if they had needed it.
But there was no room in the inn, you say? Well, let’s talk about that, too, shall we? In the Middle East at the time, the common people lived in simple two-room homes. There are still many who live this way in that region today. This two-room home had a large common area where the family cooked, ate, slept, and lived.
The second room was for guests, and could either be attached to one end of the house, or it could be on the flat roof—a “prophet’s chamber”, as in the story of Elijah (1 Kings 17:19). On the end of the main room next to the door, either a few feet lower than the main room or blocked off by heavy timbers, was an area specifically set aside for the family livestock.
Each night, the family would bring into this area of their home the family cow, donkey, sheep, or whatever few animals they owned. They did this for two reasons.
First, the animals they owned were vital for the family’s survival. To have them stolen would break them and they could starve to death. The second reason they moved the animals into the home was for warmth in winter. There was no central heating, no heat pumps, no baseboard heaters.
So, every evening, the animals were lead into the one end of the home, and every morning they were led out again and the area was cleaned. One interesting note is that the animals were fed from mangers. These mangers were either large bowls dug out of the earthen floor in the raised family area for the larger animals, or wooden devices that stood off to one side in the stable area for the smaller ones.
The floor of the family area was sloped down toward the animal area so that it could be more easily cleaned. Once the animals had been moved out in the morning, the floor could be swept or even washed toward that end and then all of it could be easily swept out the door.
This style of home fits very nicely into the biblical accounts of the birth of our Savior, His life, and His teachings. Take, for example, His teaching that His followers are “the light of the world” in Matthew 5:14-15. When He says, "Nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house,” this is an obvious reference to the type of home I have described.
Look, too, at His confrontation with the synagogue official in Luke 13:10-17. Jesus heals a woman who “was bent double, and could not straighten up at all.” When He healed her, He told her that she had been “freed”. The Greek word there means “untied”.
Move down to Jesus’ response to the angry synagogue leader who was irate over the fact that Jesus had worked on the Sabbath. Jesus responds with, "You hypocrites, does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the stall and lead him away to water him?” He uses the same word there.
Jesus knew that every night, His opponents took their animals into their homes, and every morning they led them out to water, including on the Sabbath! They untied their animals; he had “untied” this woman.
There is an Arabic translation of the New Testament that dates from the 9th century that records this verse this way: “does not every one of you untie his ox or his donkey from the manger in the house and take it outside to water it?”
Why don’t the Greek texts have this phrase? Perhaps simply because it would have not been understood by the many people who lived outside of Palestine and have led to confusion. The Arabic believer would have understood quite naturally because this was the norm for people living in the region. We know that God is not the author of confusion, don’t we (1 Corinthians 14:33)?
Now, what does this have to do with understanding the phrase, “there was no room for them in the inn,” in Luke 2:7? We need to look at the word that has been translated as “inn”. The same verse says that He was “laid in a manger.” This would make it seem that the family had been rejected by the innkeeper and had had to move out into a stable.
When we look at what we have just learned about the actual living conditions of the time, we see that this was not the case. So, what does Luke mean by “there was no room for them in the inn”?
Two words in that line need to be looked at. The first one is the word for “room”. The word there is topos, and it means “space”—as in, “there isn’t any space on the shelf for another book”. The second word to examine is the word for “inn”. The word is kataluma, and it means “a guest room”.
When we look at the story of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10;25-37, the “inn” that the Samaritan took the wounded man to was a pandocheion. This word specifically refers to a commercial inn. The, look at the conversation Jesus has with His disciples in Luke 22:10-12. When He tells them to ask the man carrying the water jar where the guest room is where He is to eat the Passover with His disciples, the word there is kataluma.
So, where does all of this confusion come from? Part of it comes from the Middle East traditions, and part of it comes from a novel written around 200 A.D. entitled The Protoevangelium of James.
The traditions of those in the Middle East have Jesus being born in a cave because many families established the beginnings of their homes in the hill country in caves. Later, as they were able, they would build-out from the caves, adding on rooms for the family to use as it grew. They also hold to this view because it fits with the “mystery” that is such a key element of their traditions.
In the Eastern Orthodox Church, mystery and the vastness of what cannot be known about God are the central focus. This is called “apophatic theology”, and it has to do with the way of negation. The assertion is that much of theology is beyond our understanding, so there is much mystery surrounding God. It is that mystery that is worshipped.
In keeping with this, their tradition holds that Mary was alone when Jesus was born—which actually comes from the novel I mentioned. See, part of their tradition also has to do with what is known as transubstantiation—the bread and wine actually becoming the literal body and blood of Jesus Christ. The altar in their churches is covered when the elements of the Eucharist are placed there because none can witness the change take place. This being so, it fits with their tradition that there were no witnesses when “the Word became flesh”.
While this sense of piety toward the miraculous and gracious birth of the Savior is touching and even admirable, it has no basis in the reality of the biblical accounts or the culture of the times. As with many of the things that we hold near and dear to our hearts in our Christian faith, much of it is more folk theology than valid theology. Much of it is based upon tradition and hearsay rather than on real study and accurate hermeneutics.
So, let’s summarize what we’ve learned and put it together with a little more of the information that we have from the Gospel accounts.
Joseph and Mary travel to Bethlehem from Nazareth by royal order. When they arrive, they are welcomed into the home of a hospitable family. Since the guest room was already occupied by others, they were welcomed into the personal living space of the family. While they were staying there and waiting for the census to be completed, the time came for the baby Mary was expecting to be born.
When He was born, the baby was wrapped in cloths and laid (put to bed) in a manger filled with fresh straw. The man had been cleared out of the area, and Mary had been surrounded by excited and helpful women, including the village midwife. Now that the baby was asleep and the mother was resting, the men were allowed to return. They were delighted with the arrival of a boy, and the man congratulated Joseph and God’s blessing to him.
Later that evening, there was a knock at the door. The man of the house went to answer it, expecting other villagers. What he saw gave him pause—it was the shepherd’s who cared for the flocks in the valley outside of town. How did they come to be here?
While they—the outcasts—had been tending the flocks through the night, angels had appeared to them and announced that the Savior that they and all of their Jewish brethren had been awaiting had come and that He had been born that very night in Bethlehem nearby.
They had been very frightened at first. Not only was the appearance of angels way outside the ordinary, they had been told to go visit the child and told how they would be able to find Him. Being at the bottom of the food-chain socially, they would be fearful of going into town and coming into contact with all of the regular people—especially at night. They would be suspected of being about doing evil and be driven out of town!
The angel knew their fear, and he allayed their fears by telling them that they would “find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger. (Luke 2:12)" The Messiah, the Savior, wrapped in cloths the same way that their newborn children were wrapped? Lying in a manger, like a poor peasant child? They could not imagine it—and yet, they could!
Their reaction? "Let us go straight to Bethlehem then, and see this thing that has happened which the Lord has made known to us. (Luke 12:15)” They had hope because the long-awaited Messiah had been born into the lowliest of conditions, just as they had.
This has always been part of the blessedness of the story of God becoming a man and becoming identified with His creation. He knows and understands the poorest, shabbiest, humblest aspects of being a human being because He lived them, too.
When they arrive, they are welcomed and allowed in to see this amazing gift from God Most High. I can well imagine Joseph and Mary having discussed with their hosts the special circumstances that they found themselves in. The graciousness and the hospitality of the family that had taken them in was quite grand, actually.
That the shepherds, who were of the lowest social order of the day, were accepted and welcomed into that home in the middle of the night speaks volumes about that family. When we read that they left, praising God for all that they had seen and heard, I am convinced that part of what they were celebrating was the level of hospitality that they and the family of the newborn had received.
Just imagine what their reaction would have been had they come from that amazing chorus of angels and been confronted with Mary and Jesus in an outside stable, away from warmth and friendliness. They would have gathered up the family and insisted that they come home with them, that their wives would be glad to take care of them!
Hospitality, as I said, is long been such a matter of honor that the honor of the entire town of Bethlehem would have been in danger had they found the holy family in such desperate conditions. Even at their low level in the social order, some things just were not done! When they left ,they left singing praises to God because there was no need of the baby born to be the Savior of mankind that was not being met.
One other thing to note at this juncture and that is a statement that Matthew makes in Matthew 2:11. He says there of the Magi, “After coming into the house they saw the Child with Mary His mother. What house if He had been born outside in a stable? Some have said, “Well, the wise men came quite a while after the night of Jesus’ birth, and by the time they arrived, the family had found other lodgings.”
Nice idea, but does it really fit with the text? Or does that seemingly casual statement in Matthew fit perfectly with the interpretation that we have been discussing today? I think the latter is the case, don’t you?
Why is this important? In the first place, I believe that it is essential for us to have as accurate an interpretation of the sacred accounts as we possibly can. Ideas matter, and what we believe in is based on the ideas we have.
Another reason this matters is that God the Holy Spirit ensured that we would have as clear an understanding of God and His will and His ways as we could handle by the way He moved in the writers of the Bible. Proper interpretation gives us the richest and clearest understanding we can have. This is vital if we are to be able to worship God “in spirit and in truth”, and if we are to know “what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect”.
My hope is that our study today has created a hunger within you to better know and understand the Scriptures. The story of the birth of our Savior is fuller and richer than many of us have ever imagined. We can know that, and we can better understand His teachings and the richness of His life, by better understanding the people and culture of His day.
Through this, we can better know and understand the nature and character of God, which, as you are aware, is the key reason that I study and teach the way that I do. When we better know and understand the nature and character of God, we are better able to worship Him, to love Him, to serve Him, and to share His massage with others. We are better able to know what it is that pleases Him and to be able to seek to live that way.
Plus, we are able to more fully enjoy the rich heritage of our faith and the blessings that come from knowing just how loved we are by the Sovereign creator of the universe.
As we go about our lives this Christmas season, let us keep in mind the things that we have learned today. Let us not fall into being critical of others for their ignorance of the truth, for we have all been victims of that ourselves.
Instead, let us find opportunities to perhaps share a tidbit or two with someone else that they may more fully understand the depth of God’s love for us by better understanding the realness of the humanity of our Savior and Lord.
Let’s pray.
