....I want to be the Innkeeper.
He was doing his thing, running an Inn. I picture the sweeping of floors, the making of beds, the making of food and drink. The laundry and dishes...because there is always, always laundry and dishes.
He, I would think, had a partner helping out behind the scenes. Someone who was chopping wood and onions, spreading hay, feeding animals. Someone who, when the sun dropped behind the hills and the moon rose high over the fields, would lay down next to him and share in the secrets of the day.
He was 'just' an Innkeeper. And he was probably thrilled when the decree came to have all return to their hometowns to be counted and taxed because times for most were tough and that ruling meant that business, for a short time anyway, would boom.
And then, into the town of Bethlehem, came a sweet new couple. They were tired from the journey and probably cold and a little bit hungry. She was so very pregnant and feeling heavy and maybe a tad bit cranky...or was that only me when carrying my babes?
It was dark and the journey had been long. They knocked and knocked and no one had room.
But the innkeeper...he saw something. Or maybe it was that person I envision standing beside him. However it was, he saw beyond two people and their donkey begging for a place. He saw two human beings who needed help.
I'm assuming that life hadn't always been easy for the innkeeper because there are so few that haven't ever had to work hard, to figure things out when life was tough, to worry. He was just an innkeeper after all...not a king or a prince or nobleman.
He knew every bed was taken and maybe even all the couches, too. He knew that there simply was not enough room anywhere in that little inn, but rather than turn them away, he saw something in them. They were real people. He then thought to his stable. It was warm in there and trampled hay softens to a silky sort of smoothness. He set them all up, inside and away from the harshness of the weather.
He didn't know anything about them and yet, rather than turning his back, he helped. He gave his last available space to them for the night. That Innkeeper didn't know that she was carrying a prince, a king, a savior.
He just did what he knew in his heart was right. That Innkeeper wasn't too proud to offer his stable...our Lord wasn't too good to be born in one.
I want to be like that Innkeeper. I want to throw open our doors of our little house and welcome all in. I want to close my eyes to the clothes people wear and the cars they drive and the work they do. I want to greet all who knock. I want the conversations to be safe and the laughter to be great and the music to be lovely and the food to be plenty.
I don't want to stress about the laundry or the sweeping of floors or the chopping of onions. I want to honor my savior in the way I open our home.
I pray that those who enter will have a glimpse to the bigger picture of what it is we are trying to be in this little house on this little street.
Innkeepers.
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