The Innkeeper

Well, I hope that you won't find me irresponsible nor do I hope that I plunge on your respected husband's list. But when Edie and I got married a bunch of years ago and went on our honeymoon, I had not secured 75 to 85% of our lodging for that timeframe. Now there's good reasons for that that may be a story for another time as to why I would go on a honeymoon to Colorado and would not have hotels booked and ready to go so that we had a place to stay. Maybe I'll tell that story at some point in the future, but it's not for today. What you will be impressed with is that I ended up getting us in some really, really sweet places. I was prepared because I knew that I might be facing some difficult circumstances. I was actually reasonably prepared with some, some smooth talk, right? I had a couple of things going on in my head. I was prepared that when I walked up, when we landed and then we ended up in Colorado Springs, and I had no place to stay and I walked into a hotel, and I was saying, "Hey, we'd like to check in, "we'd like a room," and they were going to reply me, "Mr. Gillis, we're sorry, but we're full. "We have no availability." And I was going to say, "Let me ask you a question. "Let's say the president of the United States "showed up here tonight, "you think you could find him a room?" And they said, well, "Mr. Gillis, of course." And I said, "I'll tell you what, I can confirm "he's not coming, I'll take that room." So I was ready to do that. But I actually found out that I didn't need to do any of those things because my honeymooners with no place to stay story was working like gold everywhere I was. I ended up in Colorado Springs talking to them at the front desk giving them the we're 24 years old, just got married, don't have a place to stay. We live in Georgia, but we flown to Colorado. It's a long story and can you help a man out? My bride's over there. I really wanna make a good impression. And I went from regular room to honeymoon suite at the same price as the regular room by the time it was all done. Then I drove out to Aspen, Colorado. And when we got there, we didn't have any place to stay. I told Edie, I said, why don't you just stay right here in the car. I'm gonna run into this little welcome center for just a moment. I went in there, the ladies were in there. They had like cheese, and grapes, and stuff. I was like, I like Colorado. I mean, grapes and cheese, like it's my job. And I ended up going in there and saying, I'm a 24 year old, I just got married. My bride's in the car. We're on our honeymoon. I didn't have an opportunity. It's a long story, but we don't really have anywhere to stay. And these ladies were scrambling around like I was their son. We ended up staying at the Ritz-Carlton in Aspen for peanuts and Cracker Jacks. My wife was like, man, you are the dude. And I was like, thank you, Jesus, for this help, right? I don't know what it was with the 24-year-old honeymooners with no place to stay story that was working so well, but it was. Maybe they were looking at us and thinking to themselves, I can see myself in them. Maybe they were looking at us and thinking, I remember what it was like when we first got married. Maybe they were looking at us and just feeling sorry for the fact that I was a really irresponsible husband and apparently hadn't done any pre-planning for my honeymoon. I don't know what it was, but it worked. And they were dead set on helping me out and helping us out to make sure we had a place to stay when we didn't have one. That's why when I come to the Christmas story every single year, and I begin to read it in Luke chapter two, I'm slightly puzzled at a little portion of it. Every year, it makes me more and more curious and puzzled. You remember the story. You've seen Charlie Brown. It's in Luke chapter two. "In those days, Caesar Augustus issued a decree "that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. "This was the first census that took place "while Quirinius was governor of Syria. "And everyone went to their own town to register. "So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee "to Judea, to Bethlehem, the town of David, "because he belonged to the house in line of David. "And he went there to register with Mary, "who was pledged to be married to him "and was expecting a child. "While they were there, "the time came for the baby to be born "and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. "She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger "because there was no guest room available for them." Each time read this story, it's beautiful. and I love to read it every single year actually. Sometimes I even read it, I know this is maybe, sometimes I even read it when it's not Christmas. 'Cause, you know, it's in the Bible. But when I read the story, I sometimes come away from this going, this just seems curious to me. There's a really pregnant likely teenage young lady who has traveled in. And it seems that kind of the tail goes this way. The traditional telling of the story is there was this innkeeper, they knocked on the door. The innkeeper said, sorry, we're full. We've got no room for you, but there's a barn out back. And so they go and stay in the barn and that's the story, right? And of course, I keep thinking to myself, man, this really pregnant teenage girl shows up to a really, really small town. I'm talking about Bethlehem, not during the time of the census when everybody came back, but normally Bethlehem, maybe 150, 200 people. Like it's really small. I've been there. It's a really small town. And when you studied it in the kind of the ancient past, you realize just how small it was. Places like Nazareth and Bethlehem, these were tiny places. And so this really, really small town where this really, really pregnant teenage young lady comes walking in with her betrothed husband, husband. And they come in and they got nowhere for them to stay, really? Like where's Mrs. Innkeeper? Because she would have been like, oh, I'll find you a place, honey. And you're coming into an ancient context, by the way, when you're going into ancient Israel and the ancient Middle East that hospitality is one of the highest things on their core value list as a culture. This is what they do. They are hospitable people even to their enemies, by the way. In the middle East, oftentimes, they'll even give quarter if you come and ask. They'll give quarter to an enemy and not harm you while you're there. Now, when you leave you're in trouble, but not while you're there. It was an incredibly hospitable culture. I'm thinking to myself, where were the other ladies that were around in this constant? Where were the gentlemen that were going, what? They're staying in a barn? That can't be. We can't let this happen. Where were all those people? Did no one in Bethlehem have any compassion in their heart at all? Was everyone an ogre going, that's your problem, lady. It's curious, isn't it? It sometimes makes you go, huh. It reminds me of a story that I read. It was a story that was actually written in 1966 about an event purportedly that had occurred and it appeared both in Reader's Digest and Guideposts, for those of you old enough to remember those little magazines that they put out. It was written by a lady named Dinah Donahue. And she wrote a story about a nine-year-old boy named Wally Pearling, who was from a small Midwestern town. And Wally Pearling was nine years old but he was only in second grade. He should have been in fourth grade, but he was in second. He was a really big kid, bigger than all the other kids, but he wasn't the sharpest in school. And so he was a really gracious kid though. He was kind of a gentle giant and he made sure that none of the, none of the little kids actually got picked on, so he was kind of a help in that regard. But while he was really looking forward to the annual Christmas play that they were going to put on and that they put on for their school, and he was really, really, really wanting to be the shepherd. He wanted to be one of the shepherds. He wanted to hold that big staff, you know, and be a shepherd. Problem was is that the shepherds and the angels and the shepherds and then, you know, coming to the manger and all that, there were too many lines. And the teacher, Mrs. Lombard, she wasn't really fired up about giving Wally too many lines because she just knew he wasn't the sharpest along that line. So she said, I tell you what, Wally, I want you to be the innkeeper. And he was like, okay, whatever you want me to do, I'll do whatever you like. So he had his lines and they were just literally almost none. And that came time of the play and Mary and Joseph came up to the inn and knocked on the door, and Wally opened the door and they said, "Well, we need a place to stay." And he said, "We're full. "No room here." Then he closed the door. And then all of a sudden, there was another knock on the door. And he opened the door and they said, "We really need a place to stay." And he said, "We're full. "No room here." Closed the door The third time. And he opened the door and they said, "Sir, we just, my wife, she's pregnant "and she's gonna give birth soon. "And we really need a place to stay." And all of a sudden, Wally gets teary-eyed at nine years old. He's just kinda standing there quietly off to the side. The teacher's yelling out from the wings, "Say your lines. "Say your lines: we're full." And he just kinda looks and kind of puts his head down. And he says, "We're full. "We don't have any room." He puts his head down and he closes the door. Mary and Joseph start to walk away. And while he can't help himself, he opens the door back and he says, "Wait, wait, Mary, Joseph, don't go. "You can have my room." Everybody that was there that night, I think generally speaking, nobody thought that the play had been messed up. In fact, everybody thought that they had seen something beautiful. My question is always if a nine-year-old gets that, why didn't anyone in Bethlehem get that? What seemed to be the issue? If a nine-year-old understood that, what was wrong with what was going on here in Bethlehem? Well, maybe we need to take another look at the text with fresh eyes for just a moment and see what it is saying to us. I want you to notice very quickly here in verse number seven, it says this: "They looked for a place to stay "because there was no guest room available for them." Now that word right here in the, some of the old translations is translated inn. But the word in the Greek language is the word kataluma. And that word actually means a place of lodging or a guest room or a guest chamber or some scholars actually call it a marriage chamber, it could also mean as well. So there's a number of different meanings for that word. But when you look at that text and it says that there was no room for them, or you read there was no room for them in the inn, you think to yourself, man, can you believe what that mean innkeeper said? Of course, here's your problem. What innkeeper? There is no such person mentioned in the text. You caught that, right? Not mentioned. Where did this idea come from? Where did this idea come from? Well, it came from the fact that people, when they read that and they saw no room at the inn, they assumed that there was an innkeeper, right? It seems to be a natural thought. And by the way, that certainly is a possibility. But there are other possibilities that exist that I might point out to us because if Luke wanted to use the idea of an inn or a hotel, he certainly could have done that. Because when we look at this idea in context, what I want us to do is to make sure that we don't have in our minds something that we may be projecting on the text. You see, when we hear that, we hear about Mary and Joseph coming up to the reception area of the Marriott in Bethlehem, right? That's what we think. They're ringing the bell, right? Ding, ding, ding, and the Holiday Inn Express person comes up and says, "Welcome to Holiday Inn Express. "How can we help you?" "We'd like a room." "Sorry, we're full. "I don't know if you saw the no vacancy sign "that was flashing in neon outside, but we're full. "But we do know there's a place around back "that nobody stays. "It's just for the animals and you can go in there." That's what usually goes on inside of our head. But the thing is even though inns, public housing, or public inns actually did exist in that time, if Luke wanted to use that term, he could have. You see, because in Luke's Gospel, he does actually use the term for a public inn in another place when he tells the story of the Good Samaritan. You remember that story? You find it in Luke chapter number 10. And it says that he went to him. The good Samaritan did and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. And then he put the man on his own donkey and brought him to an inn and took care of him. You see, this word is different than the word that Luke is using in Luke chapter two. This word describes what we would think of, at least in the ancient world, as a hotel, right? A public place to be able to stay. This is what describes that. That's not the word that Luke used. Luke used kataluma. By the way, the word kataluma, where we translate it guest room, is actually used in another place in Luke as well. When Jesus is actually telling his disciples to prepare for the Last Supper, to prepare for the Passover. Listen to his words in Luke 22, he said, "As you enter the city," Jesus telling his disciples. He said, "As you enter the city, a man carrying a jar "of water will meet you. "Follow him to the house that he enters "and say to the owner of the house, "'The teacher asks,'" where is the kataluma? "'Where's the guestroom where I may eat the Passover "'with my disciples? "He will show you a large room upstairs all furnished. "Make preparations there." Interesting, huh? Same writer, by the way, this is Luke. Luke has word choices. Well, Luke has chosen when he told the Parable of the Good Samaritan to tell a story about a man who was injured and was ultimately cared for by a Samaritan and taken to what we would call a hotel, an inn. But in Luke chapter two and in Luke chapter 22, he uses a different term. And that term has to do with the idea of a guestroom. Now, keep in mind that Bethlehem is so small that likely Bethlehem would not have been a place for a big public hotel. This was a small place. Often those were placed on the way to large cities. Now, Bethlehem was certainly on the way to Jerusalem, so it does remain a possibility. And it's also possible that something smaller, like a public house or a hostel that we would call it, might have also been something that could have been a part of this story as well. But most likely what we're talking about, most likely is we're talking about one of Joseph's relative's house. Why would we be talking in that way? Because if you recall, everybody was coming back to the place of their lineage. Joseph was making his way back, where all of his family members, his aunts, uncles, and cousins and all, wherever they live, they were coming back to the same place or they already live there. The likelihood is, is that what they could not find is they could not find a guest room, an upper room in any of the lodging of any of his family that when they arrived, everything was so full that that's what was going on. You see, the house itself in the ancient world, the house itself, like if you were looking in the ancient houses of Bethlehem, you would find that there was an upstairs room that was called the guest room or the guests chamber or the marriage chamber. And then you would find a downstairs where it was multipurpose. It was public and it was multipurpose. It's where work was done. It's where sometimes the family would sleep on occasion, right? Depending on if they had guests or if they didn't have guests, right? It was a place where at night they brought their animals inside. Why would they do that? They would bring their animals inside into the lower part of the house so that they wouldn't be stolen or be messed with. They would bring them in at night because they didn't have always the fencing to be able to keep them in. And they were worth so much that people sometimes could steal them or take them. And so they would bring them in, which is why in the bottom if you look archeologically at these old houses in Bethlehem, in the floor of the lower room there would be a feeding trough or what we call a manger. So very likely, I'm not saying for absolute sure, but very likely what we're talking about here is we're talking about coming to a relative's house, not having a guest room available for them and Mary and Joseph having to be in a lower level in a public, virtually a public multi-use space among the animals where there is a feeding trough even available there. Now it's very difficult for me to be able to diagnose to the exact scenario here, but what I would imagine is this, is that where Mary and Joseph were staying was likely not private. And it was also very unimpressive and probably a bit smelly at night. That's my guess. Maybe you're thinking to yourself, Jerry, wait a minute. I think that the series is called Missing Christmas. And if you've just made the case that maybe there's not even an innkeeper like we thought, because we thought the whole thing was gonna be how the innkeeper missed Christmas, then where are you going in this message? Where exactly are you headed? If we're talking about the possibility of missing Christmas and maybe, maybe an innkeeper is not the one who missed Christmas, who then missed Christmas? Well, probably the city of Bethlehem. You're like, could a whole city miss something? Well, a whole city could certainly pay attention to something. I know that because I've seen the Grinch who stole Christmas and Whoville did exactly that. Grinch thought he'd stolen Christmas. And all of a sudden he wakes up on Christmas morning and he hears. ♪ Wa hoo, wa hoo ♪ And he looks down there and Cindy Lou is leading the crowd in singing a song. And he begins to recognize that maybe it wasn't about presence all along, and the whole town realized it. Maybe Bethlehem was the early opposite of Whoville. What do you think the problem was that Bethlehem had in missing the first Christmas? I would give it to you in one simple word: distraction. Distraction. Now, you're saying, Jerry, did I read the word distraction anywhere in Luke chapter two, verses one through seven. You didn't, it's not said explicitly in the text but I think that when we begin to explore the historical context of what we see in Luke chapter two, verses one through seven, we're going to be able to see how they were distracted. And by the way, if you'll pay attention, I think that you'll find that the Christmas story speaks to us right now in this moment of our lives. What were they distracted by? Here's the first thing I would suggest. They were distracted by anger. Say, Jerry, I'm not sure if I actually see that in the text itself that they're distracted by anger. Why don't you look with me and let's pay attention to the text itself. Here's what verses one and two say. "In those days, Caesar Augustus issued a decree "that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. "This was the first census that took place "while Quirinius was governor of Syria." Now, when we read that word census, what we think about, because oftentimes we project modern thinking onto an ancient text. When we think about a census, we just think about counting population, right? That we've gone through in the United States. Hey, fill out your thing for the census. So we know who you are and we can count how many people are there. We know how many are in your district. We know how many are in your city. We know how many are in the state. We know how many are in our nation, right? That's what we think of when we think of census. But when you read this, this word could be translated not just census, but registration. It could be translated enrollment. It could be translated as taxing. Now, the reason that I tell you that is because what you need to understand in this historical context is that Rome, who had been going through a period called the Pax Romana, the peace of Rome, where everybody was able to enjoy this great peace and it was relatively peaceful, not at war all the time, what Rome was now beginning to embark on during this period was they were embarking on those that were subject to Rome. They were now going to require that those people paid tribute to Rome in the form of taxation. That was going to start to feel really heavy handed for a lot of people as you could imagine, particularly the Jewish people. They already felt a little bit like their freedom had been impinged because they couldn't go and come anywhere. They didn't feel like even though they had so called a King of the Jews, right, and Herod the Great, even though they had this king, they felt like that he was kind of a vassal for the Roman empire as opposed to being kind of a sovereign over Israel. And even though Israel was allowed to do a few things on its own, they were still under the thumb of Rome. And now Rome was going to enact taxation upon them. And remember in this story, Luke makes it very clear. This was the first census that was going to occur. I can imagine that if you would think about it for just a moment, how irritated people were. By the way, this was the first but there was then later on, there was a second wave. You could think about it this way. This first census or this first registration was basically an assessment phase. What they were doing is they were taking people wherever they lived, tying them back to their native heritage homeland, right, the place of their ancestry, the place of their lineage so that they could assess what they had what land they owned, how much they had. Part of the reason that Mary traveled with Joseph was this very reason. But she was also really pregnant, that's why. But it was also come back to be able to establish husband, wife, child on the way, business, land, all of those things had to be accounted for. This was the assessment phase, right? Nobody really knows about assessments. Like we all know when tax day is in the United States, right? We come into April and we're like, well, that's tax day. Does anybody know when assessment day is? No one does, right? We just get assessed and we're like, oh, that happened, right? Well, this was kind of the assessment phase but there was a later phase that happened. And do you know how I know that people were really angry about the second portion of this phase when taxation really started to happen? I know it because when I read in the Book of Acts, this is after Jesus is doing his ministry. Gamaliel is trying to talk to the people about what they do with the disciples of Jesus, right? After Jesus has died and risen from the dead and now he's departed. And now his disciples are carrying on his ministry. And they're trying to determine whether or not they're going to arrest them and are they gonna put them in jail? What are they going to do with them? And Gamaliel, the high priest, basically says, "Listen, "you better be careful. "If this is of God, "you're not gonna be able to stop it, right? "But if it's not of God, then it will fill, "it will kind of just dissipate." And then he starts to tell them, "Do you remember some of these people who've led rebellions? "Do you remember some of them?" That's what Gamaliel starts to say. Listen to what he says in acts chapter five, verse 37. He says, he talks about a few of them that tried to revolt and he says, "After him, Judas, the Galilean appeared "in the days of the census "and led a band of people in revolt. "He too was killed and all his followers were scattered." You know what that tells me? People were really angry about getting taxed by the Romans. So angry that they were willing to partner, these Jews were willing to partner with this guy and engage in a revolt against Rome. I don't like their chances by the way. And it obviously got quelled and put down. But these people were very, very angry.
So what's interesting is that if you think about it, this anger continued on; it lasted. If you remember the time of Jesus, if you remember when Jesus was doing his ministry, the Pharisees and the teachers of the law always tried to trap Jesus in certain ways. And do you know what they used one time to try and trap him? The most emotionally charged subject they could find. Listen to what it says in Luke's Gospel chapter 20. It says, "Keeping a close watch on Jesus, "they sent spies who pretended to be sincere. "And they hoped to catch Jesus in something he said "so that they might hand them over to the power "and authority of the governor. "So the spies questioned him, "'Teacher, we know that you speak and teach what is right "'and that you do not show partiality, "'but teach the way of God in accordance with the truth.'" That can be translated they are buttering him up. Then they say, "Is it right for us "to pay taxes to Caesar or not?" You know what they did. They took the most emotionally-charged subject that they could find and they wanted to try and trap Jesus with it. Even long after Jesus' birth, this anger was still around. By the way, decades even after that, it was still around. Because you know why Paul is in part having to talk to the church at Rome? Made up some of which are Jewish converts. Others are other people that have come out of Gentile worlds or region that are under the leadership of Rome. Do you know what he's dealing with there about talking about being subject to authority? Taxes. Look at what he says, Romans chapter 13, "Therefore it's necessary to submit to the authorities, "not only because of possible punishment, "but also as a matter of conscience. "This is also why you pay taxes, "for the authorities are God's servants, "who give their full time to governing. "Give to everyone what you owe them. "If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; "if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor." So I'm not just making something up out of the clear blue. The historical context teaches us that these people were angry and they were angry for a long time. And listen to this, here in Bethlehem, I'm making the argument that their anger may have been distracting them from seeing Christmas, because in the midst of their anger, the one was born to them upon whose shoulders the government would rest, is what Isaiah teaches us, right? But you know what they were angry at? The government. That's what they were angry at. For application purposes. This isn't too far from home, is it? Everybody's angry at all things government these days, so much so that it can easily be a distraction and cause you to miss Jesus in the midst of it all, cause you to miss Christmas. Some people are angry about what they consider overreach of the government based on the restrictions that have been imposed upon the citizens of a state or a nation. Some are angry about the government's engagement with shutdowns because of how it's affected people economically, how it's affected kids educationally, how it's affected churches religiously. Some are really angry at the government because they feel like the election wasn't trustworthy. Some are angry at the people that are angry at the government because they feel like you haven't gotten over it yet and can't accept what the results are. Depends on what take you have. People are angry in a variety of different ways. Some are so angry that they're not even pushing their anger now at the government, but they're projecting it in other places. What they're angry with is circumstances that they can't control, and so they're projecting that anger in other places. Sometimes it's aimed to the spouse, Sometimes it's aimed at kids. Sometimes it's aimed at a pastor. Sometimes it's aimed at other people. And so they're just projecting that anger in other places because of the circumstances that have made them really angry and they haven't been able to control them. When we can't control stuff, it makes for a difficult moment, doesn't it? It can make us really angry. What I fear though is that maybe we've put too much faith in government and too much faith in human leaders. And maybe we've forgotten the fact that we have a King and that we are citizens who are called to a different kingdom. And that may be too much anger really demonstrates that our allegiances are in the wrong place. And too much anger clouds the hope that we have of the kingdom that is to come. Anger can be a distraction, ladies and gentlemen. And it can cause us to miss Christmas, but here's the good news. Are you ready for it? God shows up in the anger. That's what we learn. Listen, that's what we learn in Bethlehem. God shows up in the anger. Everybody's hot. They're mad. And God shows up right in the midst of it. We can be so angry that we're distracted that we miss Christmas. But there's another distraction I would point out to you and it's this. We can be distracted by inconvenience. Let me point you again to the text of Scripture in verses three through five so that you can see this as well. It says in verse three, "And everyone went to their own town to register. "So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee "to Judea, to Bethlehem, the town of David "because he belonged to the house in line of David. "He went there to register with Mary, "who was pledged to be married to him "and was expecting a child." You wanna talk about inconvenient? You've got roughly a little less than a hundred miles from Nazareth in Galilee to Bethlehem in Judea. They did not have the opportunity to call an Uber or a Lyft or a taxi. Nobody got to do that. They had to walk or donkey their way there. That's gonna make for a multi-day journey maybe somewhere in the neighborhood between five to seven days. You've got a very pregnant woman who is having to journey a little less than a hundred miles, not riding in a vehicle. Joseph is having to leave his business behind, where he's working to be able to put food on the table and care for his now growing family, and that has to be paused. You see, back in those days, there was no virtual or mobile work. They had to be where they were doing what they were doing. By the way, he left all of his friends in different places because the people that were there in Nazareth were now having to go back to their places of origin, where they came from. And so everybody's going in a different direction potentially. They didn't have the chance to just FaceTime with their friends and text them and catch up with them. No, they weren't going to see them for some time now. They were going to be away. Business was going to stop. Friendships were going to be put on hold. None of this was as they had planned. And, by the way, when they got to Bethlehem, the living arrangements were not ideal. This was extraordinarily inconvenient. It's not what they planned. It was out of their control; it was a mess. And into that mess, Jesus came. That's what he did. Into the mess, Jesus showed up. The problem is is that when we get so inconvenienced, we can become distracted and we can miss Jesus showing up. If any year in our lives has ever been really inconvenient, 2020 in a landslide. Anybody arguing with that? We all kind of go, yeah. 'Cause now all you have to say is just 2020. You don't even have to fill in anything. You don't have to finish a sentence. Something can happen and you can just go, 2020, with this exasperated look on your face. What's wrong with you? 2020. What happened to your face? 2020 is what happened to my face, okay, right? If ever there's been a year, this is it. All the things that we take for granted. Going to work, going to school, all of these things, going to a restaurant, going to a movie, having friends over, visiting family members, all of these things have been messed up. All of them. And we feel so put out because everything is outside of our control. We can't control a global virus. We may be angry about what has or hasn't happened as a result of that choices leaders have or haven't made as a result of that, but it's outside of anybody's full control. And as a result of that, we've become so inconvenienced that it is messed with us and has messed everything else up. and it's distracted us. And we've forgotten that the word became flesh and made his dwelling among us right in the middle of the mess, right in the middle of Bethlehem. Jesus showed up in the inconvenience and the mess. And we can get so distracted by our inconveniences that we miss Jesus. But I've got a good reminder for us. God shows up in the mess. You see, these are the things that we're learning from the Christmas story. God shows up in the anger. God shows up in the mess of inconvenience. But if we get distracted by all of these things, we too, like Bethlehem, may miss it. Let me show you a final distraction, and it's this. They were distracted by the mundane. Let me show you what I mean. Read with me in verse six and seven. "While Mary and Joseph were there, "the time came for the baby to be born. "And she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. "She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger "because there was no guest room available for them." Ho-hum. Nothing to see here. Now we know that the conception of the Lord Jesus was supernatural. That Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit and placed within the womb of Mary. This was not from natural means with Mary and Joseph. That is supernatural, but that is generally unknown to the people that are making up Bethlehem. All they see is a teenage young lady with her husband who they've heard is a new husband. Maybe even they were formerly married. when they got back to Joseph's town of lineage in Bethlehem with family that may have been where the formal. They were already betrothed, which is much more than just being engaged. It's almost like being married, because it requires a certificate of divorce to get out of. But while the marriage wasn't consummated, they may have formally been married in the eyes of their family members at that time when they came into Bethlehem. It's hard to know, right? But they were acknowledged as married. But there were questions and probably among family members as to the parentage of the baby that was in Mary's womb. And plus it was just so unimpressive. So unremarkable. This is a King, this is a Messiah. This is the one the Old Testament, all of the Scripture has been saying, look for this guy and he's going to be born there. You're gonna place him in a feeding trough to this couple that we're not even sure about what's going on there. Do you know us looking back at this, it seems difficult for us to imagine this being the birth story of the King of kings? How much more difficult do you think it was for the people that were in the town? How extraordinarily difficult for them to be able to see it. It was so unremarkable and so unimpressive. These weren't circumstances that were fit for a king. But if the incarnation or the putting on a flesh, if the incarnation of Jesus teaches us anything, it's this: God shows up in the ordinary. God shows up in the ordinary. You see, I already know that because 700 years before the birth of Jesus, approximately, God spoke through the prophet Micah and basically said this: "I'm gonna show up in the ordinary "and do something remarkable." Listen to what Micah chapter five says, "Marshall your troops now, "city of troops, for a siege is laid against us. "They will strike Israel's ruler on the cheek with a rod. "But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, "though you are small among the clans of Judah, "out of you will come from me "one who will be ruler over Israel, "whose origins are from of old, from ancient times." It's as if God said, I'm gonna show up in the ordinary, in the insignificant, in the small. See, what I hope is that, I hope that you understand that God will do the same thing today. That God will show up in the small things. God will show up in the insignificant things. God will show up in the mundane things. God will show up in the ordinary things. When you're trying to help your kids or your grandkids navigate this season, pay attention. Don't get distracted by the fact that it's just mundane. God may show up in that. When you're on that Zoom call, pay attention. Even though you've got Zoom fatigue, like the rest of us, pay attention. God may show up in that. When you're going to the grocery store with your mask on, oh, it's so good to see half your face. Pay attention. God may show up in the ordinary. When you're working at home and you look good from the top up and you got pajama bottoms on the bottom side, pay attention, God may show up. When you're just having dinner with your family, mundane, normal, every day, pay attention. Don't get too distracted, because God may show up. See, what you need to understand and what I need to understand is that ordinary is a welcome mat for Jesus. That's what the story of Christmas teaches us. I didn't get his permission to share this and so I'm gonna keep it in such a way that nobody would know who I'm talking about. But I got a really encouraging note from a person in our church recently. He was in Atlanta some time to be there for a relative that was undergoing cancer. It was a specific kind. Anyway, he said, "Early one morning, "I went to get a newspaper and fuel up. "And there was a tree service contractor "fueling up his truck on the other side of the pump. "He was on his phone communicating with a crew "concerning the details for the day's job. "He saw me waiting, And I knew I wanted to speak with him. "And once he was off the phone, I said, "'Can you help me with the roads around here "'and give me some driving tips?'" "I mean, it is Atlanta after all, right? "The man responded, 'Where are you from?' "I said, 'I'm just outside of Buffalo, Amherst, New York.' "And the man asked, 'What are you doing here?' "He said, 'Back then in the earliest stages "'of my relative's illness, "'I couldn't speak without tears.' "So the man was so patient with me, "listening and hanging on every word I spoke. "When I was done explaining my relative's medical needs, "he didn't hesitate. "And he said this to me, 'Don't you know "'what the Lord has done? "'He has brought you to Atlanta, "'to one of the best hospitals in the country for this. "'Your relative is going to receive the best possible "'medical treatment available.' "And as he was stating these words, "this tree contractor moved in closer toward me, "put his hand on my shoulder and began to pray over me." Is there anything more ordinary than stopping for gas? Yet God showed up. God showed up. You have no idea when, where God wants to show up in your world. The ordinary is a welcome mat for Jesus. So I hope that you won't be distracted this Christmas and miss it because of your anger or because of anything else that you could come up with. Your inconvenience or potentially even because of things just being ordinary. Same old, same old 2020. I want you to remember, this Christmas that Jesus showed up into an angry, messy, inconvenient kind of world, a world that at the time thought everything was just normal and ordinary and the same, that's how he showed up. And he'll do it again if we'll pay attention and not be so distracted that we miss him. You may be here. You may be at one of our campuses. You may be online. You may be listening by way of radio, wherever you might be. And maybe you've never before put your faith and your trust in Jesus. I want you to understand that when he came, he didn't just come to give us some nice sentimental stories; he came to save us. That's the angel said to Joseph, "You will call his name Jesus, "because he will save his people from their sins." See, every single one of us have sinned and come short of the glory of God and can never save ourselves. That's why this whole beautiful, true story of God coming in the flesh and dwelling among us happened, so that we could be rescued from our sins, so that our life could be transformed, so that we now could live as people of the kingdom of God, citizens of light, instead of creatures of darkness. That's why Jesus went to a cross and died in our place for us because he paid the penalty of our sin that we could never pay. He satisfied the justice of a Holy God, who will always judge sin. But he did it willingly, not against his will, but he joyfully went to the cross, because he knew what it would do. And he rose from the dead conquering sin and death and hell and the grave on our behalf, that if we would put our faith in Jesus, we'd be made new in this life and in the life to come. I don't want you to miss that. You're not going to miss the lights and the sappy shows and the commercialization. You know why? It's in your face all the time. You can't miss it. What you can miss, however, is the most important thing about Christmas: Christ, Christ Jesus. We can be so distracted that we miss him. I hope that you won't. After I finished praying here in a moment, both on this campus and on other campuses live and online, you'll hear ways that we can follow up with you and how to be able to help you walk through that decision to know Jesus personally. Father, I pray in Jesus' name that you would speak this truth deeply into our hearts and that we would be reminded that just like in the time of Bethlehem, it can be so easy for us to miss you, Jesus, to miss what's happening, to miss the beauty of Christmas. Father, I pray in Jesus' name that we would not do that, that we wouldn't let our anger distract us, that we wouldn't let inconvenience distract us, that we wouldn't let the ordinary and the mundane distract us, that we'd fix our eyes on you in this season. Know that ordinary times, frustrating times, messy times is like a welcome mat for your activity. And that we would see you in action in our world and in our lives for your glory. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.