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I love Christmas carols. I love Christmas decorations. I love the traditional Christmas nativity scene. The carols, the decorations, and the nativity tell a story we know well. Jesus was born in a stable, placed in a manger, where, as one famous carol says, cattle were lowing.

Listen to Luke 2:4-7.

So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.

Did you notice that there’s no mention of a stable and no mention of oxen or cattle? What we do know is that Mary and Joseph were not able to stay in the guest room.

Most first-century homes had a single room where family lived and slept. Connected to this family room was a second room – a private guest room. This was for other family, friends, or visitors to stay in. “Guest room” is the best translation of the word used by Luke. It’s the same word used in Mark 14:14 and Luke 22:11 for the room where Jesus and his disciples ate the last supper.

When Mary and Joseph arrive in Bethlehem, they go to a relative’s home. But they arrive after other family who have already been offered the guest room.

Let’s also remember that codes of honour meant a homeowner would never turn family away, even distant family as, most likely, Joseph and Mary were. There was no way Mary and Joseph would be unwelcome. The image of an innkeeper closing the door on them or only offering a stable out back is far from the reality.

And the manger? Imagine a split level: the upper family level with the private guest room and a lower animal pen, separated perhaps by just two or three steps, where animals stayed at night. In the floor of the upper level, there were small dugouts for animal food, which animals in the lower level could reach to eat. These dugouts were “mangers”.

What do these details tell us? Mary and Joseph had no privacy when Jesus was born – Mary gave birth in the middle of the family room, with other family, perhaps distant family, looking on. What’s more, because of limited space, Jesus was placed in one of the dugouts in the floor – a manger.

It’s easy to sentimentalize the Christmas story. In a way, the stable scene portrayed on Christmas cards and in nativity images, with donkeys, sheep, cattle, and oxen standing round, with fresh bundles of hay in the manger, and the warm glow of light creeping across, keeps Jesus distant. Instead, Jesus was born into awkward and vulnerable human reality.

I enjoy the cards, the carols, and the decorations. There is something almost magical about Christmas. But like you, I don’t want the “sentimental” Jesus; I want to encounter the Jesus of Scripture, as the Christmas story of his birth is actually told. Then I can say, “Where meek souls will receive him still, the dear Christ enters in.”

May you meet the Jesus of Scripture this year.

Grace and peace

Pastor Callum