Tuesday, December 20, 2011

The Twentieth Person of Christmas is the Innkeeper

"...she placed him in a manger, because there was no room in the inn." Luke 2:7

The Bible doesn't mention the innkeeper. Nor does it mention any homeowners that might have turned Mary and Joseph away. The Bible is curiously silent on the hours leading up to this one moment, as Joseph must have looked frantically for a place for Mary to give birth, realizing the time was upon them.

I wonder about them, this innkeeper, these homeowners. Did they know? Did they hear? Were they some of the people that the shepherds went running to, to tell them the good news that the angels had shared?

I wonder if these people ever realized what they missed out on.
Did they ever understand that they were this close to witnessing the event of history?

It's a good lesson for all of us. We have to be ready to see. We have to be ready to hear. We must be ready.

You know, it wasn't just the innkeeper who missed it. Most all of Bethlehem, and the world, missed it. Missed the wonder. Missed the miracle. Missed the joy. Missed the Messiah.

The innkeeper is important to the Christmas story because he reminds us that we need to be ready! We need to be looking! We need to pray to have His eyes and His heart, so that we may see needs that we can meet, so that we can hear the hearts' cries of others. So that we can receive the blessing of being His servants.

If we are ready to entertain "angels, unaware" we may never know in this earth life just what we've done. And that's ok, someday we will.

But we will know that we have been God's servant. We will know we have done His will. We will know that we fully participated in His plan.

So be ready. Open your eyes. Open your ears. And be ready.

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