Room at the Inn?
I don’t know what you think of when you picture the nativity. Perhaps it’s the sweet-faced little children in your life, dressed as angels and shepherds. Maybe it’s the nativity scene on your mantelpiece. Or the one at church?
When I was a little girl I always wanted to be Mary in the school Christmas play. But I never was. I always got the job of the narrator.
I have a few nativity scenes indelibly fixed in my mind. The deepest memory I have was the very first nativity I was involved in as a newly qualified teacher. I had only been at the school for 3 months and was very keen to make a good impression.
The school I was working in was in a poor area. But I’d managed to cobble together enough passable Nativity costumes for my class. I am not a sewer so there were a lot of ill-fitting sheets and safety pins going on. Lets just say it was a bit of a health and safety nightmare.
The local vicar let us use his church for the occasion.
But he was at pains to explain just how new his new chancel carpet was. It was a beautiful carpet too. Thick velvety red.
Every member of the cast was told, in no uncertain terms, to remove their shoes.
My children joined the rest of the school, filed up the steps and stood near the Altar. I felt so proud of them. As they started singing “Little Donkey, little donkey” Mary and Joseph came in up the aisle and sat down by the manger (I say ‘manger’, it was actually a magazine rack with some shredded bank documents meant to resemble straw.)
It was all going so well..
That’s when I noticed Lottie. Now Lottie was one of my shyest children. It had taken a Gettysburg address for me to try to persuade her to be a sheep.
And Lottie did not look well. In fact she was very green. And not because of face paint.
She just started gently swaying. With the eyes rolling a bit. At first I thought it was because of the music… But then I realised that ‘Little Donkey’ was over. No one was singing.
Then she suddenly fell sideways in a dead faint hitting the magazine rack quote forcibly with her shoulder and sending baby Jesus flying. He was deftly caught by the little boy playing the Star. The audience were delighted and burst into spontaneous applause.
Then I rushed to Lottie’s aid, just as she was violently sick on the vicar’s new carpet.
I can still remember his face now!!
I don’t think that nativity was that much of a success, do you?
My second memory of a nativity, was at my mum’s school. My mum was a brilliant head teacher. One year she had the slightly unwise, as it turned out, idea of letting the children write their own nativity. Improvisation with 5 year olds. And songs…
I say songs. The music they wrote wouldn’t have won any awards. It was about as basic and repetitive as they come. I can still remember one of the ‘songs”:
“Mary’s legs are really tired
Joseph’s legs are really tired
The donkeys legs are really …”
You get the idea….
But what made this particular nativity really special was the presence of one little boy.
Mum had cast a local pub owner’s son as the innkeeper. He brought a lot of experience to the role and took it all very seriously.
But in the dress rehearsal he suddenly rather changed the script.
When Mary and Joseph knocked on his door he opened it widely and instead of saying his only line, “No room in here sorry!” (Or words to that effect) he welcomed them in with open arms.
“Come in. We’ve got loads of space. You’re only small. You won’t take up much room .”
Mum was frantically waving at him. “Philip!! Philip! NO dear.” (A bit Joyce Grenfell.) He gave her a thumbs up and stood proudly as the rest of the children were covered in confusion and unsure what to do.
Mary and Joseph looked like a rabbit in the headlights. And just froze. It was fabulous. Everyone watching just roared! I think my mum was a little bit sheepish. And there was a lot of rehearsal that day for Philip.
I loved his spirit. The truth is he had the right attitude. ‘No room at the inn’ is the last thing that poor Mary needed to hear.
As a child I had this beautiful idealized picture of Mary. In my head she was mid twenties with shiny skin, immaculate blue ironed head scarf with tiny white trim. She had a neat bump hidden under a flattering empire line dress. She sat side-saddle demurely on a fluffy clean donkey whilst she and Joseph sang and laughed all the way to Bethlehem. Maybe they placed eye spy too. Because I was 6…and that’s the game you play when you are on a journey. If you are 6.
But of course this is far from what must have been her reality. Most scholars think the real Mary would have been between 12 and 14. The Mary of my mind’s eye didn’t have acne and GSCE’s to think about.
The trouble is the Mary of my imagination was the one I saw each year kneeling by a pristine manger on the mantelpiece nativity scene my parents got out at Christmas. But that could not have been her reality could it?
Imagine riding a donkey all that way, as a pregnant, frightened teenager.
The real Mary had no choice. Now I have only ridden a donkey twice. Once was on blackpool beach as a child. The donkey in question was clearly incredibly bored – as well he might have been. The second time was down a steep hill in a tiny remote Spanish village and I thought my life was over at every turn of the path. This donkey seemed to want to throw me off. And it kept sort of leaning over the edge. He was a wonky donkey. No doubt.
Mary arrives at a town thronging with people and thinks the baby is starting to come. I say ‘thinks’ because she wouldn’t know would she? This is her first baby. You’re nervous aren’t you? She has no midwife to check her. No one is plugging her in to any machines. There’s no birthing ball to sit on. Just a moving donkey.
Now I have had 4 kids but one set was twins… so I have only had 3 pregnancies. I had books to read and people to talk to. I had pre-natal midwife chats, and post natal midwife chats and the internet to refer to. Mary may not have had access to any real knowledge at all. Here she is with a new husband in a strange place and no-where to stay – no female relatives to help her or reassure her.
I can imagine that she’s not sitting serenely with an ironed empire line dress now. She is aching, in pain, anxious and unsure of where they will go.
As you know, they are offered a stable. Cold, dusty, dirty, smelly – but at least a roof over their heads and a bit of privacy.
She starts to push. There is blood and her dress that was already dirty is now filthy.
The baby is born and is healthy and well. I am sure the proud parents are more than relieved and happy. Is she exhausted or exhilarated? I think most new mothers are both. She probably wants some sleep, but there is this huge light shining down over the stable.
What a strange experience this must have been for such a young person as her!
The she gets the visitors. Call me old fashioned but if I had had the guests that Mary had, in my room at Maidstone hospital, I would have had serious words with the maternity staff!
But Mary gets some unknown shepherds turning up. She is the only female in sight. And then suddenly the room is full of men who look after sheep. Then she gets the wise men from the east visiting her. They each pass her a gift for her precious baby.
Now those gifts must have confounded her. They were the least practical presents to give a new born child were they? Not nappies, mothercare vouchers or a bugaboo travel system. Oh no. Gold, frankincense and myrhh. Gifts that would mean so much later on, but not so much now.
But do you know what? Mary did not complain about the brightness of the star. Nor did she get Joseph to shoo out the shepherds. She listened to their tales of having seen the angels and heard them singing.
She accepted the visit from the wise men and their somewhat strange gifts and allowed all these people room into her tiny stable to share this moment with her.
I
Love
That.
She is so unselfish.
Do you know what the Bible says about her here? It says she “pondered these things in her heart” – some versions say she “treasured” them in her heart. It doesn’t say she understood them, but she didn’t dismiss them, question them, belittle them or complain about them as we can so readily do, can’t we?
This gives us a massive clue as to why she was chosen for the job.
What an incredible lesson her acceptance is for us.
God chose the perfect mother for his child. He didn’t choose me or you. He chose her.
Makes you think, doesn’t it?