Bethlehem

It only took a couple of hours.  The roads were surprisingly empty of travelers.  It is late in the season for the census, most people have already arrived.  Bethlehem is something of a tourist town, being where David was born.  Perhaps like the Heartbreak Hotel across from Graceland, the home of another King, there were rooms to be had.

Usually.

But today, the inns are full.  And even if there were “No Vacancy” signs posted in bright neon, Joseph would still have gone door to door.  It wasn’t for him, he’d sleep on the ground.  It was for Mary.  Her time had come, to put it biblically, ‘after the way of women’.  Maybe her water broke, maybe she was in labor.

But they were in a strange city with no friends, no family, no connections to help them out.  They were at the mercy of strangers, strangers with inns already filled up.  One of those innkeepers took pity.   Maybe his wife saw Mary’s condition.  Maybe she cried out in pain from the donkey as Joseph tried desperately to negotiate some place to stay…any place to stay…  This kept up, maybe past midnight.

Until…  It was around back.  It was the stable.  Room for the donkey and room for them.  Maybe they were charged double, maybe the innkeeper sent for the midwife, the bible doesn’t say.  We do know that Mary was able to lay down, that while she was in labor, preparing to give birth…

And “in that region, there were in those fields, shepherds keeping watch over their flocks by night.  Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them…”

Merry Christmas.