True story: during a church Christmas play, when Mary and Joseph came to the inn looking for a place to stay, the compassionate little boy playing the inn keeper went “off script” and blurted out, “You can have my room!”

And why not? In a culture given to hospitality, why wouldn’t the innkeeper (never mentioned in the Bible, by the way) not have said to the highly pregnant young woman, “Oh goodness! We’re full up, but you can certainly have my own room!”? Or, for that matter…

1. Why didn’t Joseph and Mary just head over to Zechariah and Elizabeth’s house which wasn’t far away?

2. Why didn’t one of the shepherds who visited say, “Well, this won’t do. Let’s take them to our home?”

3. This was Joseph’s hometown - wouldn’t some cousin, or childhood friend, bring them in for the night?

No options but a stable?

Of course, the Bible never actually says Jesus was born in a stable. It just says there was no room in the inn, and when he was born he was laid in a manger.

But watch this…

Not Your Typical Holiday Inn

The Greek word translated “inn” (in the KJV) is kataluma. It can mean “hotel” or it can mean “guest room.” The only other place it’s used in the Bible is in Luke 22.11-13. Jesus sent some of the disciples off to town, to make preparation for Passover. He told them to go to a certain place, "’…and say to the owner of the house, “The Teacher asks: Where is the guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?" He will show you a large upper room, all furnished. Make preparations there.‘ They left and found things just as Jesus had told them. So they prepared the Passover.”

Archeologists have excavated houses from the time of Jesus, and they are very much the same as some rural Palestinian (and Mexican) farmhouses today: a guest room for visiting family or friends; other than that the whole house is basically a big open room. The family cooks in this corner, sleeps in that corner, sits and visits in that other corner. There’s a little “mud room” (that’s what my Wisconsin farmer friends call it) or “dirt room” (that’s what my West Texas farmer friends call it) at the entrance. You walk in, take off your dirty farming boots, then step into the rest of the house. But it’s all one big room. The cow or donkey was brought in at night and kept in the mud room. This served the dual purpose of protecting the animal and adding warmth to the house. And there was always…yep, you guessed it…a feeding trough - a manger - for the animals to eat from while they waited through the night.

How Do You Read The Story?

So, here are two options for you to choose from when reading the Christmas story:

Option One: Mary and Joseph are dirt poor, head to Bethlehem to register for the census, try to find a hotel room for the highly pregnant Mary, get turned away by the innkeeper, and have to settle for the barn out back.

Option Two: Mary and Joseph go to Bethlehem, Joseph’s family town, and immediately make their way to the home of his brother (or cousin or aunt or childhood friend). Because others are there too, the guest room is occupied (and probably upstairs anyway, and not an ideal place for a woman about to deliver a baby), but the family says, “Hey y'all! Come on in - you can stay with us!”

While there, Mary goes into labor. The menfolk are all shooed out of the room and the women folk tend to the birth. When the beautiful baby is born he is wrapped up in nice clean wrappings and laid into the softest place around - the manger full of straw - in the same cozy room!

The shepherds come and visit and worship. Then the wise men come. Here’s the pièce de résistance: in Matthew 2.10-11, when the wise men from the east came to Bethlehem in search of the savior, “When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. And going into the house they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him.





For more about this, and many other wonderful insights, check out Kenneth Bailey’s Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes.