Have You Any Room? (1 of 4)
Series: So This Is Christmas
Jeff Strite
Luke 2:1-7
Several years ago, a church held a Christmas pageant with a group of 4 year-olds. Everything went along pretty well until Mary and Joseph ''arrived'' at the inn. The 4 year-old Joseph asked: ''Do you have any room for us?''.
''No,'' replied the innkeeper, ''the inn is full.''
''But it's so cold outside, and my wife is going to have a baby. Don't you have any place for us?''
The little innkeeper paused for the longest time before saying: ''I'm not supposed to say this, but you come right on in.''
(Christy Ehmann in Christian Reader Nov/Dec 99)
Our Bible passage for this morning says that (Mary) ''gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.'' Luke 2:7
Down through the ages, there have been a few misunderstandings about the Christmas story.
* Jesus wasn't born on December 25th (more likely it was at the latter part of the month of September or early October.
* And, there's nothing about Mary riding a donkey (or anything else) into Bethlehem.
* And, despite what you may have seen as a child growing up - Jesus wasn't born in a red barn... it was a cave under a house (when I went to Israel, my guide told me there is common agreement that they've found the cave Jesus was born... and it was in that cave that Jerome translated the Latin Vulgate. He stayed there because he wanted to be close to the place Jesus was born).
* And the 3 Kings? Well, they were never called Kings in Scripture (wisemen), there's no number of wisemen given... and they didn't even show up when Jesus was born. They arrived about 2 years later.
And of course, most scholars take great pride in telling us that Bethlehem was too small to have a ''Days Inn.'' One scholar noted that ''The Bible never mentions an innkeeper. In fact, it's possible there was never even an 'inn' at all. A recent study note ...
Series: So This Is Christmas
Jeff Strite
Luke 2:1-7
Several years ago, a church held a Christmas pageant with a group of 4 year-olds. Everything went along pretty well until Mary and Joseph ''arrived'' at the inn. The 4 year-old Joseph asked: ''Do you have any room for us?''.
''No,'' replied the innkeeper, ''the inn is full.''
''But it's so cold outside, and my wife is going to have a baby. Don't you have any place for us?''
The little innkeeper paused for the longest time before saying: ''I'm not supposed to say this, but you come right on in.''
(Christy Ehmann in Christian Reader Nov/Dec 99)
Our Bible passage for this morning says that (Mary) ''gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.'' Luke 2:7
Down through the ages, there have been a few misunderstandings about the Christmas story.
* Jesus wasn't born on December 25th (more likely it was at the latter part of the month of September or early October.
* And, there's nothing about Mary riding a donkey (or anything else) into Bethlehem.
* And, despite what you may have seen as a child growing up - Jesus wasn't born in a red barn... it was a cave under a house (when I went to Israel, my guide told me there is common agreement that they've found the cave Jesus was born... and it was in that cave that Jerome translated the Latin Vulgate. He stayed there because he wanted to be close to the place Jesus was born).
* And the 3 Kings? Well, they were never called Kings in Scripture (wisemen), there's no number of wisemen given... and they didn't even show up when Jesus was born. They arrived about 2 years later.
And of course, most scholars take great pride in telling us that Bethlehem was too small to have a ''Days Inn.'' One scholar noted that ''The Bible never mentions an innkeeper. In fact, it's possible there was never even an 'inn' at all. A recent study note ...
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