It was probably worse than we think …

I can appreciate the intent of the people we read stories about who take their sleeping bags and spend a night on the street as an effort to “get an idea” of what it is like to be homeless.

However …

The reality is that homelessness entails much more suffering than any person can get an idea of by simply spending a night on the street. The physical, mental, and emotional suffering is multiplied far beyond the experience of nominal experiments.

And, in a similar way, I think it’s very possible that first Christmas found the circumstances of Joseph and Mary to be worse than we imagine.

We like to talk about how an inn keeper turned them away, saying there was no vacancy available. But scripture doesn’t mention an inn keeper, it simply records this:

“At that time the Roman emperor, Augustus, decreed that a census should be taken throughout the Roman Empire. (This was the first census taken when Quirinius was governor of Syria.) All returned to their own ancestral towns to register for this census. And because Joseph was a descendant of King David, he had to go to Bethlehem in Judea, David’s ancient home. He traveled there from the village of Nazareth in Galilee. He took with him Mary, to whom he was engaged, who was now expecting a child. And while they were there, the time came for her baby to be born. She gave birth to her firstborn son. She wrapped him snugly in strips of cloth and laid him in a manger, because there was no lodging available for them,” Luke 2:1-7.

Some pastors and theologians like to explain this with a thoughtful explanation that Joseph and Mary probably stayed with family. Since they traveled to Joseph’s ancestral hometown, he would have had family there. So, the reasoning goes that when he and Mary arrived in Bethlehem, Joseph’s relatives already had full households of out-of-town family visiting, and any other lodging was booked. In spite of this, the reasoning goes, a family member probably made room for them in part of their house where some animals were taken in overnight, and that’s where the manger became available for the newborn king.

I get the reasoning behind this explanation surrounding the birth of Jesus, and it’s a reasonable possibility — but I don’t think it works with what is actually recorded in scripture. If Joseph and Mary found lodging among Joseph’s relatives, it’s more likely Luke would have never have recorded, “… because there was no lodging available for them.” It doesn’t make sense to write such a note if they were staying with family, even if it was in the least desirable part of the household.

There’s another possibility we don’t hear much about.

Luke specifically refers to Mary as the woman to whom Joseph was engaged, meaning they weren’t married. And she was pregnant, about ready to give birth.

An unmarried couple, and her being pregnant, would have been the height of moral and religious scandal … even among family.

It very well could be that, in spite of Joseph having family in Bethlehem — which culturally would usually mean you automatically make room for a family member showing up on your doorstep — that there was no place for them in Bethlehem because they were being shunned by family for their “sin” of Mary’s pregnancy outside of wedlock.

It’s very likely that the issue wasn’t just that there wasn’t a room for them at some inn, but that there was no place for them to be because people (including family) were rejecting them over their “scandalous” circumstances.

IF that was the case, the depths of their loneliness at such a critical time (Mary about to give birth) would have been more deep — and more emotionally painful — than we have imagined.

While the needs of a homeless person can be many and varied, the greatest is simply to be received and loved.

If Joseph’s family wasn’t making room for him and his fiancé, they would have felt deep rejection. That on top of wrestling with what to do about delivering a baby who wouldn’t wait any longer.

But a space was found, a manger provided, and the Savior of humanity was born into the world He had created.

We can be quick to judge what we think are the visible, “obvious” sins of others and make no room for them because of our faulty deductions. When we do such things, we also find ourselves making no room for Jesus himself.

Scotty