THE FOXES have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay His head (Matt. 8: 20). So it was in the years, when Jesus went from city to town. And so it was, when He came to earth: “No room for Him in the inn!”
It was no enmity against Jesus, that at Bethlehem, in what we would call the hotel, there was no room at the disposal of Mary and Joseph. St. Luke clearly tells, that it was because of overcrowding.
The enrollment according to tribes and families had suddenly brought an unusually large number of people to Bethlehem; for especially those families, which in one way or another, belonged originally to the royal city of David, were proud of their descent, and on no account would be absent at this time.
Hence a great number of travellers had come simultaneously to the little town; and, as is readily understood, the hotel or inn was not prepared for this.
Ordinarily it would have been much, had there been two dozens of sleeping-chambers ready at one time; and now at once the house was full of people.
Of course, he who came first, was first served. So the last room was soon taken. And when, late at night, Mary and Joseph arrived in the little town, with the best of wills the host was not able to accommodate them; and all he could offer them was a resting-place in hay in the stable. He had no more room to let. The stable was the best he could offer!
Least of all was there enmity in this against Jesus; for who knew Mary? And more still, who knew the holy child Jesus that, still unborn, she carried under her heart?
That the Savior of the world was born in stable, and has slumbered his first night of life in a manger, is therefore no index of human hard-heartedness, but a Divine disposition.
The Lord has willed it so.
There is here a Divine symbolism, in which the mystery of the Incarnation lies as it were enswathed.
Immanuel could have been born amidst high surroundings as the world counts them. He could have been born at Jerusalem. In the royal palace. From a royal princess. Born in a magnificent apartment. And thus have been surrounded from His first night of life with all the splendor and wealth of the world.
But this the Lord has not willed.
By His counsel it was not Jerusalem, but the forgotten Bethlehem that was appointed. Not a royal princess chosen to be His mother, but an obscure maiden in all her lowliness. And so it is by God’s counsel, and by that counsel alone, that here not merely all splendor and wealth remained afar off, but that even the most needed accommodations were lacking. That stable at the inn is intended on the part of God for the birth of Immanuel.
And so it is here the Lord, Who is about to do something great in the earth, yea, the greatest that ever took place on earth, but Who on this very account rejects and excludes whatever is deemed great or high or honorable among men, and is pleased to choose what is lowly, humble and despised as starting point.
Thus only is all human greatness cast down, and thus only it was pure Divine greatness that shone in what is despised of men.
Herein is all the glory of the mystery of the Incarnation.
The Incarnation is condescending love, the downbending compassion of the Lord God!
It is not merely an entering into this world; and not merely an appearing among the children of men; no, it is an entering into our fallen and humiliated human nature.
There is in this mystery a seeking of what was lost, and therefore a going down into the depth, where lay that which was lost. Yea, so deep the lost could not lie, but Immanuel went down deeper into this fallenness, to embrace from underneath what was most deeply lost.
To what still maintained itself or seemed to hold itself up; to what still bent itself upward or seemed to bend up; to what still raised up something or held high, Immanuel could not join Himself. On the contrary, all that had first to be pulled down, before it could be saved. And to what was irretrievably lost, stretched out the arms of eternal compassion.
What does the outcome show?
This, indeed, that the birth of Immanuel would not have been half so touching and striking, if there had been room for Him in that inn.
Suppose, that Mary and Joseph had arrived half a day sooner and had found a commodious room, how much striking poetry would have been lost, and how much less would the birth of that Babe have appealed to you. How much that is moving and divinely beautiful we would have missed.
You must have your Savior in that crying antithesis, otherwise He is not your Savior.
Nothing of earth, nothing of the world, even no chamber and no cradle.
Only in this thoroughgoing antithesis Immanuel shines out before you in His heavenly glory and in His Divine greatness.
From that manger that Holy Babe appeals to you altogether differently, than from a richly-upholstered cradle; from that stable far more touchingly and strikingly than if He had been born in a hall of princes.
Just because there is nothing there of the world, it is heaven alone.
Your eye is not diverted.
There is nothing there save Immanuel, and in Immanuel the impenetrable mercy of your God.
And it is not otherwise with the people of the Lord, with the flock which the Shepherd leads.
With her, too, and for her it has pleased God to appoint the selfsame crying contrast.
In churches of wood, as an old rhyme has it, preachers were of gold! And it has been the experience of Jesus’ church, that she fared better in a stable than in a temple, which had much in common with princely palaces.
The inn, too, is a symbol. Symbol of the communal life of the world. In a hotel sleep all sorts of travellers, who otherwise do not belong together, under one roof.
And in that communal life of the world, the church of Christ does not belong. There is not her place. There she does not find quietness for her divine rest.
Hence, the church of Christ never sank away more deeply, than when from the stable she went back to the inn and sought to become national or state-church; and neither did she revive again in spiritual vigor, except when the Lord drove her out of the inn again and pointed her back to the stable.
Or without metaphor, if you like.
As often as the church sought her strength in money and property, in great learning, and in what gives fame and honor among men, and thus would be looked up to by the world, she became inwardly emaciated and impoverished.
Until with the Lord there were thoughts of compassion again, and He put enmity between her and that world, and she had to be content again in lowlier positions.
And then this Mary, too, went back again to the stable.
But in that stable this Mary, too, was able again to press the holy child Jesus to her heart.
And without metaphor here also if you will, to the church of Christ in that lowlier position, fellowship with her glorious Head was restored.
Mostly in the stable of lowliness are they born, the spiritual children of our God.
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