Jesus through the Innkeeper’s Eyes

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You know, there was a program on TV this week that I was watching at or watched the beginning of, and they were talking about kind of a history of religion at first, I thought, and some of the different religions, and they hadn’t gotten into any great detail yet. And then they started talking about the subject of aliens. And I’m hearing that more and more lately, people trying to fit.

. . I’m not preaching about aliens today, don’t worry.

But this is going somewhere. People trying to fit aliens into the Bible and say, you know, that’s why Moses’ face shone when he came down off the mountain. He met with aliens and they were radioactive.

And all these things about the Old Testament that I think, you know, in line with what I’ve told you about the Old Testament prophecies, it just takes more faith to believe some of these ideas than it does to just believe the Bible. But they were talking about these different religions and the aliens, And they talked about some of the ancient Greek gods and how they would just come sort of drifting down out of the sky the way, I don’t believe it really happened. But the accounts that people gave of their Greek gods or their Roman gods, when they appeared, they would just sort of descend very slowly in all of this light.

And now all these scientists think, one of them said, you know, all of our ancestors saw these things. And the problem was they misinterpreted and what they thought were their gods were really extraterrestrials. because it just fits with the description of the UFOs coming down.

And I thought, you know, they say this about all these religions, that these gods must have really been extraterrestrials, and I think how incredible it is that, once again, I believe Christianity stands alone, that our God couldn’t have possibly been an extraterrestrial because He didn’t just come floating down out of the sky, out of the heavens, as they say. As a matter of fact, the Bible talks about no man seeing God the Father. But when our God finally did come to earth, he came through human birth.

He came in the form of a little baby. And there’s, I don’t know about you, I’ve seen documentaries about Roswell and Area 51. I’ve never seen any mention that the aliens came born as human children.

Never seen any mention like that. Our God came to earth, not in some spacecraft, not in a beam of light, just kind of gently floating to earth, but he came in human form. He came born of a virgin.

We’re unique among the religions of the world of being able to say that, that our God was something special. We’ve talked about that the last several weeks with the prophecy, and we’re through with that series. If you weren’t here last week, we finished up the series on the Old Testament prophecies, and we’re moving on to something else now for the Christmas season. But as we covered, our God came to earth in human form as a little baby.

He didn’t just appear here by magic. He didn’t suddenly show up on the scene one day and nobody knows where he came from or where he came from or who he came from. But the story was documented.

It’s written down here. It was documented by eyewitnesses and people close to the thing. Do you realize Jesus had people who grew up with him?

Think about that. The Bible talks about Jesus having brothers and sisters. I can’t imagine growing up with a sibling who was God and was always right.

Who would you blame it on when you got in trouble? But, you know, Jesus was born. He had an earthly mother.

He had siblings he grew up with. He had people there in Nazareth that had grown up with him. He had people that walked with him through all this time.

We don’t know a great deal about the intervening years, but we know that he was born in human form. We know he was taken to the temple and dedicated. We know that he grew as a godly boy and a godly young man, so much so that he was able to teach and instruct the religious leaders in the temple when his parents couldn’t find him.

And that at the end, toward the end of his earthly life, even the people who had been observing him, Folks, he lived in a fishbowl for the last three or so years of his life during his public ministry when the religious leaders would have wanted nothing more than to find some dirt on him, find something he’d done wrong. And these people who’d kept him under a microscope could not find anything wrong with him, could not find any truthful accusation to make. And folks, we serve an incredible God.

We serve an incredible God that he would come as a tiny baby and come and live this amazing life and live it without sin, provide an example for us in life, provide an example for us in teaching, but not just provide an example for us, but actually die for our sins. And through the Christmas season, we talk about Jesus and His birth and Him being a baby, and that’s important. But so many people leave Him in the manger.

So many people leave Him in the manger, just like so many people leave Him on the cross. Folks, He’s not in the manger anymore. He came as a baby, but He grew up.

He’s not on the cross anymore. He died and He rose again. And we have this tendency, excuse me, we have this tendency of keeping Jesus in places that are comfortable for us, having thoughts about Jesus that are comfortable for us.

These next four weeks, these next four Sunday mornings, we’re going to look at the birth of Jesus Christ. We’re going to look at this amazing event of history that no other religion can claim that their God came born like this. Yeah, some of the Greek gods were born, but you read some of the stories about how they think their gods were born. Somebody’s head split open and babies came out.

It makes no sense. But our God came in an incredible way, in a way that really happened, that no other religion can claim. No other God can make that claim.

We’re going to look at this one amazing event from history over the next four weeks, and we’re going to look at it from four different perspectives. We’re going to look at it from some of the perspectives of the people who were there and close to the situation. But I’m not talking about the ones.

I’ve heard messages, and I’m sure you all have too, about what Mary went through, what Joseph thought, some of these things. We’re going to talk about some of the people that were there, that were involved or at least watching as all this went on, who I’ve not really heard talked about a whole lot in messages. And we’re going to talk about the people who watched the birth and the very earliest days of Jesus Christ, and not only what they thought and what they felt, but what He meant to them.

And some of them were wrong. Some of them were right, just like in our society today, so many people. Some people are wrong in what they think about the birth of Jesus.

Some people are right. But we want to look at this from a biblical perspective and see what we can learn by looking at the birth of Jesus Christ through the eyes of people who were there and were watching. And this morning, I want us to look at what I call the innkeeper’s Jesus.

The innkeeper’s Jesus. We’re going to look at Luke chapter 2 this morning. Luke chapter 2, just seven verses in the book of Luke.

And lest I be accused of adding something to it, I want to make it clear that the Bible doesn’t mention the innkeeper. The Bible doesn’t say so-and-so was the innkeeper, this is what he went through. But folks, there was an inn that they were turned away from, and if there was an inn, there was an innkeeper.

And I think about the innkeeper as a representative of all the people of Bethlehem. And we’re going to talk about what Jesus probably appeared to the innkeeper as being, and not just the innkeeper, but the people who were there in Bethlehem at the time he was born. Luke chapter 2, verse 1 says, And it came to pass in those days that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed.

And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria. And all went to be taxed, everyone into his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee out of the city of Nazareth unto Judea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be taxed with Mary, his espoused wife, being great with child.

And so it was that while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn. And there you have the story of the birth of Jesus, at least from Luke’s perspective.

Such a story of such great magnitude in the history of the Bible, the history of the world. And really it takes place in two verses here. The actual birth part takes place in two verses.

The Bible goes into great detail about a great many things that happened and yet this incredible event, two verses sum up the story, verses 6 and 7. And so it was that while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered and brought forth her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger because there was no room in the inn. The story of Christ’s birth is incredible, but it’s also a very simple birth.

There’s not a lot of pomp or pageantry when Jesus was born. And perhaps that’s one of the reasons that we’ve talked about the prophecies. Perhaps that’s one of the reasons the Jews missed him as the Messiah because they did expect him to come as a king in all his splendor.

But he was born here in essentially a stable, we believe, and laid in a feeding trough. And it took place here in Bethlehem. Some people have had trouble with this story because they say, well, there’s no record of this, there’s no record of that.

People who disbelieve the Bible, people who choose not to believe the Bible, will a lot of times try to nitpick the details. If they can’t convince us that we’re wrong about the resurrection, they can’t convince us we’re wrong about the crucifixion, they’ll say, well, maybe the Bible’s wrong in other aspects, and they’ll nitpick the details. And for a long time, I heard people say that there was no record.

First of all, there’s no record of Cyrenius being governor of Syria. But you can look at the history books, you can look at the Roman records, and see that there was a governor of Syria at this time who was named Cyrenius. And it was just a little bit different transliteration.

They had so many languages going on during that day, the Latin and the Greek and the Aramaic, that sometimes things were not lost in translation, but sometimes the way they would pronounce and spell things in different languages was just a little bit different. And so the objection that, well, this story is made up because there was no Cyrenius. Well, folks, Luke was so meticulous about everything he wrote down.

Luke was a doctor. Luke was a man of science. And if he was making the story up, you know, the problems with people, people get trapped in their lives because of the details.

If Luke was lying and making this up, why would he throw in a detail that people in the first century would have known was false? But it wasn’t false because there’s this man, Quirinius, who was governor of Syria. And people have said, well, why, there’s no record of this tax.

Why were they going here? And why would they have to go back to pay their taxes? And I’ll admit, I don’t doubt the Bible, but I’ve had some problem with understanding, you know, why did this take place?

They had to go back to Bethlehem. First of all, Caesar Augustus, apparently a census of sorts, had started years before and had not been finished. And so they were going through the Roman Empire, and they were trying to get an accurate count of everybody.

From what I’ve read, these counts that they would take were for the purposes of knowing how many people there were, what families they were in, and where they were, because that’s how they would lay out the taxes. That’s how they would decide who owed what, who served in the military. And the Jews at this time didn’t have to serve in the Roman military, but they still had to pay their taxes.

Now, Joseph didn’t go to pay his taxes, but we believe he went to be counted for the purposes of taxation. And so he goes back to Bethlehem. There was this tax.

There was this census taken. Historians now pretty much agree on that, I think, that there was this census taken. And even though he was not going there to write out his check, so to speak, he was going there to be counted for the purposes of figuring out how much tax he owes.

And so it says that he went there to be taxed. And he had to go back to his city of origin, his city of family origin. I just figured this out this morning.

Because they were not just taxed on what they had on them, but their inheritance and their estate and all these things that were tied to the family, they were taxed on those as well. So it makes sense he would have to go back to where his family was from and where the estate was and the inheritance and all these things so that they could get all of this straightened out and he would have to be taxed. I think the reason people have a problem with this historical detail is because it’s in the Bible and people don’t want to believe the Bible.

Because we have no trouble believing that William the Conqueror, when he invaded England out of Normandy in 1066, he went in and he took over England and set up his court and set up his nobles over the court of England. And about 20 years after that, he set them out on the task of compiling what’s called the doomsday book. And the doomsday book, it sounds like a scary thing, but really it’s just about taxes.

And they went through, and they counted everybody in England down to what house, what village, what area they lived in, counted everything they had, took an inventory of the whole country. How many animals they had, how many of this they had, how many swords, how many whatever. They counted it, and they wrote it all down in the Doomsday Book, and they still have a copy of this gigantic book over in England.

And if we believe that, if historians know for a fact that William the Conqueror did this, why is it so hard to believe that the Romans, who were known for organization and law and order in their domain, why is it so hard to believe that Caesar Augustus would have counted everybody too? Why is it so hard to believe they would have had to gone back to their place of origin? Even when we were commuting back and forth, we would be here in Fayetteville and spend a couple days at a time here in Fayetteville before we got moved.

Came time for Christian to register her car. We had to go back to our place of origin. We were here in Fayetteville, and one day we had to, real quick before we could go meet the realtor, we had to drive over into Westville, which is the closest tag agency, and we had to go pay them our $300.

So people go back to their place of origin all the time to deal with government matters, deal with taxes and things. It’s not that much of a stretch. And I’m just telling you these things because people will try to attack the details in this story and make believe it didn’t happen.

But folks, there’s no reason to doubt these details. They’re historically sound. And all went to be taxed, everyone into his own city.

And Joseph also went up from Galilee out of the city of Nazareth unto Judea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be taxed with Mary, his espoused wife, being great with child. So now we get a little bit more of the story. I know we’ve already read through this, but Luke in this verse gives us a little bit more of the story.

He’s come at the insistence of the Roman authorities to come back to his place of origin, to be counted, to be counted along with his family, to be numbered, so they could figure out who owed what taxes, and later on he was going to have to pay, because everybody had to pay their taxes. And he’s gone into Bethlehem, it says, with Mary, his espoused wife, being great with child. And folks, that just was not done in that day.

Many of you in your day, growing up years ago, that was not done either. Today it’s a little more common. But Mary and Joseph were not married.

They made this trip together to Bethlehem. They were, for lack of better terminology, they were partially married, but they were not completely married yet. In the Jewish culture, to be espoused or to be betrothed meant you had gone beyond engagement to where you had actually formally agreed a covenant that you were going to marry that person.

At this point, an engagement could be broken off, just like engagements are broken off today and it doesn’t involve the state. The friends will be mad at you. The family may be mad at you, but there are no social repercussions.

There’s no you being marked out as a lawbreaker. But beyond engagement, there was this step between engagement and the marriage, the wedding, called espousal or betrothal. And after you’d been engaged, you made an agreement. Sometimes they would even sign an agreement saying that you were guaranteeing you were going to marry that person.

And if you backed out after that, there could be penalties. In some areas, you had to actually get a bill of divorcement if you broke off this relationship. It was going a step beyond engagement and saying, yes, we’ve been engaged now.

I’m guaranteeing you and I are going to be married, but it was not the same as actually getting married. A year passed between a spousal, at least a year usually passed between this espousal and the wedding. So Joseph is going into Bethlehem with this woman who’s going to be his wife.

She’s going to be his wife. She’s going to be part of his family, probably why he took her along for the count anyway. But they were not married yet.

You need to understand that they were not married yet in the eyes of the Jewish law, the Jewish community. And here she is, the Bible says, great with child. She’s not a month pregnant.

She’s not two months pregnant. She’s ready to pop, as we would say. As we would say and never say to the pregnant woman, she’s ready to pop.

They don’t like to hear that, I found out. Not because I’ve said it, but I’ve heard pregnant women complaining about having that said to them. But she was ready to have that baby any minute.

There was no hiding the fact that she was about to have a baby, that she was pregnant, and that she was far along. And I don’t know about them specifically, but Middle Eastern cultures, as in many cultures, they have ways of identifying married people and unmarried people. Today we have this ring.

We have this gold ring that we wear to symbolize that we’re married. In Amish communities, they have different kinds of, the women have different colors of scarves or head coverings that they wear, and the men have beards if they’re married. In Middle Eastern cultures, the women, too, have different ways of covering their heads, different things that they wear.

And so it was probably obvious to people who were looking at her, at least if they were looking at her close up, that here she’s not married, and here she’s great with child. And so already they looked like outcasts to the people, because that just was not done in that day. I mean, the Bible gives the order that you get married and you have kids, and I stand by that order, as we should.

But here people were going to assume that they had done something wrong, because not everybody is going to automatically know the story that Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit, that this was not Joseph’s biological baby. And probably even the people that knew them and heard the story probably didn’t believe it. Joseph had to be told by the angel that it was the case.

And so they see these people coming into Bethlehem. They come riding into Bethlehem. They’ve traveled for days.

They’re there just to be counted and pay their taxes and deal with things. They’re not coming there on a lavish vacation. They’re unmarried, and she’s far along pregnant.

and in those days you could stone women for adultery. You could shun them. You could do any number of things.

And so they would have looked the outcast when they came into Bethlehem. And so it was that while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. She was great with child, and so the days were accomplished.

It’s time to have this baby. The days were accomplished that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling clothes.

They take the strips of cloth. I don’t think they had full blankets It’s like we would use today. We still swaddle babies today.

I know we tried it with Benjamin. He didn’t care for it. But they would take strips of cloth, and somehow or another, they would wrap it around the baby where he’s wrapped up all tight and can’t move.

And apparently, most babies like that. They find it comforting, and they feel safe like they were in the womb. And they wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn.

Or some Bibles may say manager. My mother’s Bible, I don’t know if it’s the one she has now, but it had a misprint in it there for a while, said they laid him in a manger. No, they laid him in a manger.

They laid him in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn. It doesn’t say anything about stable. It doesn’t say anything about there being animals.

But we get the idea. I don’t know how far off the idea we have about the Christmas story is where we have pictures of him being in a stable and there being animals all around. It’s kind of assumed because he was laid in a manger.

A manger was an animal’s feeding trough. And so it’s not, I mean, I don’t want to add things to the Bible, but it’s not really outside the realm of possibility that there were animals there. In my experience with the dogs or the turtles or whatever, wherever you put their food, that’s where they’re going to be.

So it’s not outside the realm of possibility that there were animals there, that it was in a stable of some sort, whether that means the pretty wooden building we think of now or whether it means a cave that was hollowed out with a gate on one side or whether it means some run-down outbuilding. What we know is that it probably was not a pretty area because there were animals in there and they tend to make a mess. tend to tear things up, and they were separate from the rest of the people around them.

The rest of Bethlehem is in their homes, the ones that lived there, or the ones that traveled and had any means at all. They were there in the inn, and they were relatively comfortable for that day. They had food, and they had light, and they had what they needed.

And here this outcast family comes into Bethlehem a little too late for anyone to care or to be concerned, and somebody tells them you can stay in this stable. You can stay out here. And she gave birth to her baby in not the cleanest place, not the royal palace that would be expected of a future king of Israel, not a sterile hospital room with all the latest medical technology, but where animals eat, where the animals eat.

She gave birth to the Son of God and laid him in a feeding trough because no other place could or would be provided for them. There was no room in the inn. People of Bethlehem had no room for Mary and Joseph and Jesus.

I can only assume if they had been people of means, if they had had money to throw around. If they had looked like the rich or the powerful or the successful or the worthy, that somebody would have found some room somewhere in the inn. I remember watching a show years ago.

I can’t remember what show it is. But they show up in St. Louis and they have hotel rooms, but there’s a big snowstorm.

So people have taken all the rooms, even the ones they had reserved. And so they pay money to sleep in the hotel lobby and not be arrested for loitering. You know, if they’d had money to throw around, I’m sure the innkeeper would have accommodated them.

Found some place for them to sleep so he could get his hands on that money if they had looked rich or worthwhile. But as it is, this poor carpenter comes into Bethlehem with his unmarried pregnant woman along with him, coming in just to pay their taxes, deal with the legal issues, and they’re put out from the inn with the animals. Folks, the innkeeper’s Jesus.

The Jesus seen by the innkeeper and the people of Bethlehem was someone easy to miss. Someone easy not to notice in the hustle and bustle of what they were doing, of what they had going on in their lives. These people that were traveling that were in the inn, they had their own issues to deal with.

They had traveled all this way too, and they were there to pay their taxes, and they were there to deal with all these legal issues. The innkeeper and the people who lived in Bethlehem, they had this influx of people, and they had business, and they had money coming in, and they had guests to attend to, and all these things. Everybody was busy.

Everybody was concerned about their own affairs, and it was easy for Jesus to go unnoticed. So the Jesus of the innkeeper, the Jesus of the people in Bethlehem, the way they saw him, the way they saw his birth, was it was not particularly noteworthy, not particularly an important event. First reason for that, as I’ve already mentioned, is that Jesus appeared to be the illegitimate son of a carpenter.

Jesus appeared to be the illegitimate son of a carpenter. We tend even today to look at people and judge their worth based on the circumstances they come from. It’s unfortunate, but it does happen.

If somebody’s from the wrong, and I don’t mean all of us necessarily, I don’t mean this church necessarily, I mean human nature, although I’m sure we do it too. I know I do it on occasion. If somebody’s from the wrong side of the tracks, we automatically assume things about them.

If they don’t dress a certain way, if they don’t talk a certain way, we automatically assume that we know things about them that may or may not be true. And if we’re really honest and really willing to admit it, we judge them a little bit and calculate their worth. How much energy am I willing to spend on this person?

How much time am I willing to spend talking with them, dealing with them? How much of me are they really worth? And in the Jewish culture, the illegitimate son of a carpenter wouldn’t have been worth much.

This wouldn’t have been. Not that being a carpenter was a dishonorable profession, but it wasn’t a rich profession, especially him being born illegitimately, or so they thought. That here this man and this woman had violated God’s law.

They had gotten pregnant outside of marriage, and that baby they would have thought wouldn’t have been much. And we can still think that sometimes too. I would prefer to think that our stand, had we been there, that would be that a parent’s choices are not the fault of a child, and a child is never a mistake.

Child is never an imposition. Child is always a blessing from God. It may be a difficulty and a hardship on us, but the child is always a blessing.

The child is always worth our time. And folks, even if these people, even looking at Mary and Joseph, and if they had been any other couple, and they had gotten pregnant outside of marriage. The right response would be grace for them.

You know, we don’t agree with what was done here, but there’s grace and we’ll take care of you and love you. But folks in their culture, they would have been shunned and people would have said, you’re not worth anything. That’s essentially what happened.

I don’t know that that was the motive of the innkeeper, but here they were sent off to the outskirts of where the rest of the people were. Jesus was born among the animals in their habitat. Not only do we need to know about the innkeeper’s Jesus, that he appeared to be the illegitimate son of a carpenter, but he was born among the animals in their habitat.

Folks, that would not have been an appropriate birth for any Jew from their standpoint, from their view. The filth would not have been acceptable, and yet they sent him out to be born there. They had very strict laws about hygiene.

Not to be graphic, but when they would even use the restroom themselves. In the Old Testament law, they would have to go outside the camp and they would have to bury it. And the thought of sending this child out to be, sending this pregnant woman out to where the animals lived and ate and everything else would have been reprehensible.

And it’s hard for me to believe that the people of Bethlehem valued this child or his parents all that much if they were willing to send them out there. And yet Jesus was born among the animals and their habitat, not the kind of king that they expected. The third thing we need to know about the innkeeper’s Jesus was that Jesus was unnoticed or unwelcome by the more worthwhile occupants of Bethlehem.

Jesus was unnoticed or unwelcome by the more worthy occupants, more worthwhile occupants of Bethlehem. As I said before, if his parents had had money or the appearance thereof, if he’d been born in different circumstances where it appeared his parents were married, he was not illegitimate, they might have had more respect for the family. They might have worked a way for them to find room in the inn or in somebody’s house.

they might have been more accommodating. And I’m not telling you the people of Bethlehem were necessarily horrible people, that the innkeeper was necessarily just a cruel man. But for whatever reason, they put this family in, I think, terrible circumstances.

And it had to have been because they didn’t notice, they didn’t care to notice what was going on, or it was an unwelcome intrusion on their lives. But whatever the reason, Jesus’ birth was unnoticed or unwelcome by the people in Bethlehem. You notice as we read the, if you read on in Luke, and I’m sure many of you have read the next part with the shepherds, and we read Matthew’s account of Jesus’ birth, and we read the things about the wise men, the ones that came to visit him were the shepherds from the hillside outside of town.

It was the kings from the east. We see no mention in the Bible of the people of Bethlehem coming out to see this miracle that had just taken place. We see no mention of it. Not bec

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