We’re too familiar with the Christmas story. It doesn’t surprise and challenge us enough. We’re used to thinking of Joseph and the heavily pregnant Mary being turned away by a grumpy innkeeper who relegates them to an animal barn. But recent historical research has given us a better understanding of what actually happened. They were indeed marginalised and ignored. But not by a businessman bent on profit. By their own family.
The Unimportant Members of the Extended Family
The genealogies in Matthew 1:1–17 and Luke 3:23–37 indicate that Joseph and Mary were both from the extended family of David. But they weren’t from one of the main important lines from which you might expect the Messiah to come. They were from a minor branch.
When they got to Bethlehem, they would have gone to stay at a relative’s house. The Greek word katalyma, traditionally translated “inn,” is better translated “guest room”. Even though Mary was heavily pregnant with their first child, the relative hosting them couldn’t offer them the guest room. There were probably more important family members lodging there—maybe some respected elders, ‘uncles’ and ‘aunties’. So Joseph and Mary were banished downstairs amongst the animals. And that’s where Jesus was born.
It’s important to note that nobody despised Joseph and Mary. Nobody intended to mistreat them. They were, after all, family. Everyone just reflexively followed the normal social protocols of valuing the important people. Which meant the humble unimportant ones got pushed to the side. And almighty God manifested himself amongst those minor overlooked ones.
This better, historically accurate interpretation of the circumstances of Christ’s birth makes sense of both culture and the Bible. Majority-world cultures—including Middle Eastern cultures—value ‘kinship’. We feel an obligation to look after our relatives. But there’s also a hierarchy of importance, from elder to younger. The circumstances surrounding Jesus’ birth are also consistent with the biblical theme of Christ’s humility (Php 2:7–8). “He came to his own, but his own did not receive him,” John 1:11 says. Along similar lines, his own people in Nazareth rejected him (Mk 6:1–6).
But this better historical understanding of Jesus’ birth also challenges us in ways that the innkeeper doesn’t.
What About Us?
Most of us are not businesspeople. It’s easy for us to point and laugh at the greedy, lazy innkeeper and congratulate ourselves as not being like him. But if Joseph, Mary and Jesus himself were overlooked by normal social dynamics—we can all be guilt of things like that! We all, as individuals, families, and communities, tend to operate in ways opposite to God. That’s what sin is. And sin thereby tends to marginalise, oppress and repress people, other living things, indeed, all creation groans in frustration (Rom 8:20, 22).
No-one intends to despise anyone. It’s just the normal sinful inconsiderate way we operate. The incredible thing about the incarnation is that almighty God, who is in himself invulnerable to our sin—he laughs at and mocks our rebellion (Ps 2:4)—in his mercy and grace manifested himself as a meek, vulnerable person, a man of sorrows who was familiar with suffering (Is 53:3).
So, as we once again ponder the incarnation of God the Son, let’s recommit ourselves to worshiping him as the humble God who “abhorred not the virgin’s womb.” As part of that worship, let’s identify and admit the ways we tend to operate the opposite to God. Let’s confess our sin, instead of thinking ourselves better than that ‘sinful’ innkeeper—let’s be more like the tax collector than the Pharisee (Lk 18:9–14). Let’s praise God in Christ for not judging us for our sin, but for dying and rising to release us from condemnation. And let’s try to live differently. Let’s be hospitable towards those who are overlooked and marginalised, in a selfish and self-protective world—like the apostles cared for the (presumably elderly, infirm) widows in Acts 6:1–7.
Our good deeds can’t save the world. Only the work of Christ can do that. Let us continue to boldly proclaim Christ as “the way, the truth, and the life,” the only way to the Father (Jn 14:6), through his atoning death and victorious resurrection (Heb 9:27–28). But we can simultaneously, in his name, seek to make the world less bad, maybe even better. Let’s do what we can to make our part of the world a place where no one gets overlooked, but everyone is welcomed and cared for.
