|
A Visit from the Innkeeper
December 24, 2007 Rev. Dr. Christopher Carlson
Hezekiah! Hezekiah! We have more people. We have more lodgers. Come and get their animals. “What can I do for you?” “Need lodging?” “No?” Hezekiah, scratch the rooms. Bring some vittles. “Want something to eat?” “Not that either?” Hezekiah, scratch that. I don’t know why I hired him. He’s been working for me for twenty years, but, I don’t know why I keep him. “What can I do for you?” Oh, you’re here to hear about that night and to hear about the child, as you should. Am I the innkeeper? Chief cook and bottle washer is more likely. My name is David. Ha, I know what you are thinking. I’m not in any way related to King David. You see, it’s my father’s little joke. He never amounted to anything but he thought it would be great if at least one of his children owned something. Get it… Bethlehem, the city of David. Well, I don’t own much except this house which I use as an inn. You’re here about the child. Well it all began with that census, that old King Caesar decided he needed more money. Everyone from all around had to go to the place of their ancestry. Thank God I didn’t have to go anywhere -- I’ve been stuck in this town all my life, so have my ancestors -- but so many people did. I guess I shouldn’t complain; business was very good for that time.
Yeah, it started with that census. Shortly after the census was ordered, there was this star. It appeared in the sky and I tell you I’ve never seen anything like it in my whole life. It was as though several stars came together, and it made all the other stars shine brighter still. I tell you, those conspiracy theorists really loved it. You had the census ordered; then you had the star. People were saying, “God hates us. We are going to pay taxes to the Romans. He is going to destroy us.” Then there were the others who thought it was a sign of hope. “Oh, it must be a sign – a sign that God’s Messiah is finally coming.” Ha! Messiah! I’ve heard all of it before. You can’t live in Bethlehem and not hear about the Messiah. We knew the prophecies. The Messiah would be born in the city of David, Bethlehem, our city. Anything that happened, anything at all, no matter how big or how small, people were trotting out that old Messiah line. Well I’d heard it all before, but I’m I business man, and I lost my faith in all that a long time ago. At least until the star came. I am a business man but, when it started showing up, things started going strange for me. You see that star really unsettled me. It was different. You know, I know that stars aren’t supposed to move. Any school child knows that. But this one did. Everyday it seemed to come closer and then it kind of showed up. I have to admit that particular night when it was the brightest I was too busy because everybody else showed up too. We were never busier than that day. At first we tried to put everybody that was important in a room but then it just didn’t really matter. If people found a space in a corner or on the floor, they were lucky. By the time we got everybody settled and everybody fed, I have to admit that I, David, was a little bit irritable. I know you can’t believe that. I even yelled at Hezekiah a couple of times.
By the time it was about ten o’clock I was ready to turn in and they showed up. Somebody said there was a young man with a woman outside on a donkey and I went out to investigate. There they were, children really -- such a young face. He was pleading with me and there was his wife on the donkey, and she was big. Oh she wasn’t that big herself, but I knew a pregnant woman when I saw one, and she was pregnant – very soon. Before he got a word out of his mouth I knew what he was going to say. “We haven’t got any room. Go away.” “But sir, we’ve come a long way.” “I’m telling you we have no room. Go away.” “But sir, my wife, my wife is about to have a baby.” “Go away. We have no room.” I turned and was walking away from them and then I saw it….on the ground. It was my shadow. Oh you know how it is when the moon is so bright that it cast a shadow. It was like that, only brighter and there it was. I looked at it and I looked at the star, and then I looked at them. I knew I had to help somehow. I decided to send Hezekiah for my wife, Rachel. Rachel knew everything at least that was what she always told me. She always told me that she knew more than I did. So Rachel came and took one look at this woman and said, “David, we have to do something.” I said, “We have no room,” and she gave me, well, she gave me ‘the look’. You guys know what ‘the look’ is. It was the look that unless you find a place for these two to sleep, you will find some other place to sleep yourself. But what was I to do? “Well, we could try the cave.” “The cave? where we keep the animals?” “Well, it’s a cave, and animals are there, and stuff.” “Oh David, you haven’t been there in twenty years. Hezekiah keeps the cave and the animals. Besides, they need to get out of this cold. They need to find shelter. They need to have a place.” Before I knew it we were all trooping to the cave. The couple didn’t mind, they were just happy to have a place to go. When we got there, it wasn’t so bad. Hezekiah had actually been doing some work. It was relatively clean. It had animals and the hay and everything else had been kind of swept to the side. We found a place for Mary, as we came to know her. My wife had told Hezekiah to go find Debra, the midwife, and she came and they shooed us out. Joseph and I, as I found his name to be, began to talk. I asked him, “Why are you here? What brings you with a woman about to give birth all this way?” I think he was looking for somebody to talk to because it all came out. He told me the whole story, all of it. About how she had seen an angel and how he had seen an angel and how the child they were having was going to be the Messiah. Messiah! Here we go again. Every time I turn around somebody is talking about the Messiah, and these two have the delusion that they are going to be the parents of the said Messiah. If I had known this before I would have kicked them out then. I turned and walked away. Well, I walked around to the front of my house and there was another surprise. Shepherds....dirty, smelly shepherds! I didn’t even wait for them to speak. “Go away! Go away! We don’t want your kind here.” And we didn’t. “Oh sir, we are not here to, we don’t want a room. We’ve just come to see the child.” “What child? How did you know about a child?” “Well, we were told that there would be a child here, lying in a manger.” “How do you know about a manger?” Then they told me their story. How they too had seen an angel or many angels who said, “Come to Bethlehem and you will find the Messiah, the Lord, who will be for all people.” Messiah! Again?
About that time, Rachel came around the corner and said, “David, David, he’s been born.” And she had this look, not ‘the look’, but another kind of look. It was the same look the shepherds had. You know, I know what it looks like when people are drunk. I’ve been drunk myself a few times. I’ve seen it from this side and that side. They weren’t drunk, they just looked weird. And she had the same look. She said, “David, he’s been born.” It dawned on me, “They told you their story, didn’t they?” “Yes.” “And you believed them.” “Yes.” “Of all the foolishness.” About that time, the shepherds heard about the child and they went, “The child, where’s the child?” And again, before I knew it, we were all trooping back to the cave. And there they were. Now, I know you could never imagine such a thing; but there they were, mother and child in a manger and father, surrounded by animals and shepherds, all kneeling. I know you can’t imagine such a scene, but there it was.
Such was that night. Well many weeks passed, in the end we moved them out of the cave and into a room, and I began to wonder who was going to pay all the bills. They ate a lot, and that child, well, that child must have been more than human because he went through a lot of diapers. I kept wondering where the money was coming from. Rachel would just laugh at me, and she’d say “David they are staying.” Well time passed, a few weeks, a couple of months, I don’t know. You would think this kind of story would die down, but it spread of who we had at our house. I suppose it was because of that star again. It just kept shining on our house. Then one day, even more excitement, as one evening there were twenty-five to thirty camels outside my door, with people everywhere and I am going, “Good, more business!” But then three of the guys on the camels were some of the most magnificent people I’d ever seen. They looked like kings. You know most of us dress in very simple garb but these people had shimmering robes on with moons and stars on it. They said “We are here to worship the king.” “What king?” “The king that has been born. We’ve seen his star.” There’s that star again. “We’ve come.” “Well we have a child here if you’d like to see him.” Well, I shouldn’t have worried about the rent. They brought in chests of stuff and gave it to the child, the gold and frankincense and myrrh and other things. They knelt before the king. These men who were kingly in themselves knelt before this child. I have to admit that it was that moment that I changed. Oh, I don’t really know what it was. It may have been the star that kept shining light in my heart and mind. Maybe it was the witness of the shepherds who showed up proclaiming that we had the Messiah, himself; and it dawned on me that David, well, he was a shepherd and Abraham was a shepherd and Moses was a shepherd, and this Messiah would be a shepherd of sorts. Maybe it was Rachel herself who treated me differently. Maybe it was these three kings, these astrologers, these men who bowed down, and how appropriate for kings to worship a higher king. I think it was the child himself. He got to me, and I believed.
I know you live in a different time, but he is still the king you know. He was born and grew up and became, oh, such a man, but that’s another story. The question for all of us in any age is will we surrender? Will we believe? Will we follow? Will we worship? Will we trust this child who has been sent to us? What will you do?
I leave you with a blessing. Baruch ha Shem ha Mashiach Yeshua. Baruch ha Shem Adonai. Blessed be the name of the Messiah, Jesus. Blessed be the name of the Lord. |
|
|