How Could I Have Missed Him?

The other day, my mother and I were admiring the nativity that my father made many years ago, carved from wood and set in it’s own little manger-scene box.

As she made a show of turning on the lights, my eyes stopped on the seemingly out-of-place man off to one side. “Mother, who is this guy? I don’t remember seeing him before.” “That’s the innkeeper.” “No kidding? I never knew we had an innkeeper. How is it that I haven't noticed him all these years?”

The more I’ve thought about it, the more I seem to remember that Daddy and I discussed an extra block of wood he had and not wanting to waste it. I’m sure I suggested another shepherd or a drummer boy, but he obviously had other ideas. Now I wish I could ask him why he chose the innkeeper of all characters. This morning I picked up a small book that I keep in my study and read:

“In Winter Hearts Touch…People need physical hospitality, spiritual hospitality, and psychological hospitality always. There must always be someone available to care for anyone and everyone in need. The winter cold reminds us to open our hearts always. Someone is waiting to get in.”
~Joan Chittister, “In a High Spiritual Season”

I never thought much about the innkeeper--indeed he’s more a person in childhood Christmas stories than a specific person named in the Bible, but I do remember as a child being grateful that somebody finally gave Mary and Joseph a place to stay. The inn may have been full, but he gave them access to what he had, his stable.

Regardless, what a lovely symbol to have represented in the nativity scene, that of one who opens his heart and says yes to the needs of others and in so doing says yes to the infant Jesus, born in his midst. The innkeeper may have started off merely being hospitable, but I expect he ended up realizing that saying “Yes to God” is but a precursor to an expanding of our hearts and lives in ways we never could have dreamed possible.

There are so many different kinds of needs that people have, some not as obvious as a pregnant woman at your doorstep. Maybe it’s someone who wants to say yes to God, to open their hearts to that infant Jesus waiting to get in, but feel like they are still wandering. What kind of spiritual hospitality could we offer them in their journey?

And from now on, Daddy’s little innkeeper will remind me that we should open our hearts always. Someone is waiting to get in.

Luke 1:7 And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.