What was happening on the road to Bethlehem two nights before the first Christmas?
Mary knew her time had come. Perhaps Joseph had arrived in Bethlehem and was al-ready looking for a room for them among his relatives. He had relatives in this his tribal home. The word we translate “no room in the inn” was usually referring to a guest room in a relative’s house. We tend to think the holy family wanted to stay in a guest-house or tavern with accommodation. But the word inn usually meant the guest room in a relative’s house. This was how the word was later used when Jesus asked His disciples to go to a certain place and ask if they could use the upper guest room for the Passover meal. In any event, Joseph could find no room for them, even among relatives. So they sought, perhaps a cave, in the sheep fields. In a manger, she laid her new-born. Two nights before Christmas, Mary was a typical middle-eastern girl. She was young, away from her family, modestly wearing a veil, sitting sideways on the bony back of a donkey that would also be bearing their sleeping mats, food a
