Well, it would seem I was between a rock and a hard place. I was in a situation, where there were no easy answers. I looked hard for the simple answers because, you know, they say the simplest is always the best. But, it wasn’t a simple lesson I faced. Later in his life Jesus faced several of those times when, what seemed on the surface to be a simple question, wasn’t so simple at all. There didn’t seem to be a way out and he went and found one anyway. I didn’t do that so well.
I am Issachar and I own the Inn in Bethlehem. Well, it's an inn if you can call it such. My wife Rachel and I had ten children and with all those kids, we needed a large house. All the children have gone now. It is just Rachel and me and we we're wandering around a big empty house. We needed something else to do. So, we quietly converted our large house into an inn.
We run the inn together. I do all the maintenance work and Rachel does all the cooking. She is such a good cook many of our guests come back just to get another taste of Rachel's cooking. We work hard to keep the inn going.
Some days, we have no guests. Still, we keep going. It can be hard to make a profit with no guests. We live by word of mouth of people hearing about us and they told friends who came, and they told friends and they came and whenever there people had the need, they would come back and stay with us again.
That night was hard. We wanted everyone comfortable so they would come back to the inn, no one was comfortable. Our inn was packed. All of the bedrooms upstairs were filled. First, we assigned one family to a room, but it didn't take very long before we were out of rooms. Rachel and I made up our minds then and there that we would sleep in the kitchen. We foolishly thought we would have privacy there. Sure, we would have liked to have have stayed in our own bed but taking care of of our guests was more important.
And the guest kept coming. It was a windfall for all businesses in Bethlehem when Quirinius, the governor of Syria, ordered us to our own cities and be taxed. Bethlehem was my city. My family had lived here for generations, I was born here, and I never left. Most people did go elsewhere, they had to leave to make a living. But that wasn't the case for Rachel and me. We could stay and when we opened the inn we knew we would be able to stay for the rest of our lives.
All the people coming into Bethlehem brought a lot of money into our family treasury. There weren’t many places to stay in Bethlehem. I could have set my price at any level I wanted but I didn’t want to steal from people because I had the opportunity and as a Rabbi once taught me, to do such a thing would be wrong.
Because we had so many people, we were forced to put three and four and five families staying in the rooms. It was a tough night when I had to turn people away. Sometimes they stood in my door and begged and begged and begged pleading for a place to stay but, there was no place, no place in my inn and no place in Bethlehem.
It was extremely late when I heard a knock on the door. I stumbled my way to the door, trying hard to not step on or stumble over any of the people who were sleeping on every available square inch of floor. When I opened the door I found a couple before me. He was a fairly young man, at least to me. She was a pregnant teenage girl who looked as though she could deliver at any moment. I assumed she was his wife.
The young man introduced himself as Joseph then he introduced the girl as Mary. He asked if he could rent a room. I didn't have the room. But there was something in Joseph's face I couldn’t send away. He said, “Anything you can do to help us would bless us. I grabbed my coat and put it on, then motioned for them to follow.
It was an unbelievable sight there were people sleeping everywhere. Still they kept coming. Joseph and Mary followed to the back and the barn. That night it was the best I could do. It was warm and safe and I knew they were going to need it.
Joseph asked where to find the midwife. I didn’t want him to leave Mary unattended. That could have been a new problem. I told Joseph I would find the midwife who delivered a baby boy named Jesus to Mary and Joseph. Not long after that, things settled down in the barn and I headed for bed too .
Things happened quickly. Before I could get my clothes off and night clothes on, there was a a commotion outside and I look down and I saw shepherds. They were just inside my barn singing praises and praying to God.
The shepherds stood there watching for a few hours before heading back to their flocks. They wanted to see the baby. They watched and saw this baby the angels told them would be the Messiah. What a blessing for the shepherds.
I said at the beginning, I was between a rock and a hard place. I wanted an easy decision and there was not one. I couldn't decide, these folks knew Hebrew law. There were two Hebrew laws in question
On the one hand, the Hebrew laws of hospitality saying, if someone comes to your home you open your home to them. You fed them and made them comfortable. Why? because it is to live and to travel through the desert. People traveled and stopped when needing a place to stay. By that law, you had to help. I should have opened my home to Mary and Joseph and several others too.
Under the circumstances, that law still might have been impossible beyond what I actually did. But there was another law that would seem to contradict the first. It was part of the Jewish laws of purification. When a woman delivered a baby, she was ceremonially unclean. But there is more. Every female in the house was unclean too and no one wants to be unclean. I wish I could say I thought about my customers. I couldn’t leave those women unclean.
With that, I couldn't let her stay in the house, but it also tore at my heart. Especially when I remembered I was breaking the laws that I had tried to live by for my whole life. Now, if I didn’t completely break the hospitality laws giving them the barn, maybe God would forgive me.
I did get a little sleep. It seemed like I closed my eyes and drifted off, it was time to get up. I looked across the kitchen to see my beautiful Rachel preparing food for our guests. It was a strange seeing her work in the kitchen, while people were sleeping on the floor around her feet.
I went outside and saw a couple of the men talking to Joseph. Joseph played the proud Papa well. He told them all about his new baby boy. The others patted him on the back, and congratulated him. Behind his back people talked about him. At least face-to-face they were talking to the man and not about him.
That day was a day like any other, for some. We got up, served breakfast and cared for our guests. Many went to the tax collectors. But, for Joseph and Mary this day was a new thing. Now there was a baby. Mary was also tired.
Under the best of circumstances, and these were far from the best, the 100 mile trip from Nazareth to Bethlehem would take four hard and grueling days. When I talked with Joseph, even riding on the donkey, Mary could barely travel 10 miles a day so the trip took 10 ten full days. No wonder my inn was already full when they arrived.
Several days after Jesus was born, I offered the family a room in the inn. Things had settled down. Most visitors had gone back to the life they knew before the distraction of the taxes. There was room for Joseph and Mary inside. But, Joseph declined saying, he, Mary, and the baby would be leaving the next morning. Jesus would be eight days old soon. It was time to present him at the Temple. They were going to leave for home, but would go home via Jerusalem.
Jerusalem is only a couple of hours away and they still had a day or two. When Joseph again declined, I told him they could stay free. Still he declined. Then he pulled out his purse. I told him to put it away. I wouldn’t take money from him when his family had to stay in my barn. I said, “Call it my baby gift’”
The next morning, out quickly, walking toward Jerusalem. Mary walked along, carrying little Jesus. Joseph a few steps ahead, leading their donkey. I watched them until they were out of sight.
I never saw them again. It was not, however, the last time I heard about that family. Jesus became famous. I learned he was the long-awaited Messiah. I had turned the Messiah away from my door to be born in my barn, as if they were nobody. In truth, I am nobody. I, Issachar, am never mentioned by profession, or name in the Bible. It only says, “…because there was no room in the inn.”
Throughout my life, I have heard people talk about me, the innkeeper, and that night long ago. I am usually made the villain. But, how was I to know? I didn’t know that night.
As time passed, God placed on my heart that I didn’t put the family in my barn. God did. God wanted the world to see His Son was born like us. Had Jesus been born in a castle or other fancy home, had Jesus been born as many of us would have done for the Messiah, he only would have been like the wealthy. But born for all of us, he was one of us. He is our Messiah.
How was I to know? I wasn’t. Had I known that night that the Messiah was at my door, someone else would have slept in the barn. And, Jesus wouldn’t have been born in such a lowly place.
No, I didn’t need to know. I also didn’t know then, each step of the way for me, God was leading me. There was no way for me to know who Jesus would grow up to be. But, when the time was right, everything changed for me. There was faith in my heart.
I pray, that as Jesus the Christ’s birth is celebrated again tonight, he will be born anew in all our hearts.
