Room at the Inn

It was our first real Detroit experience. Two lanes on southbound I-75 were shut down. We were caught in a gridlock. Natalie was on the phone with her brother, so I made an executive decision: We are getting off at the next exit. As I worked my way across two lanes of barely creeping traffic, I realized that we were about to get off on the infamous Eight Mile road. Over the course of the next fifteen or so miles, my eyes glanced from side to side. I was captivated. I wanted to take in all that I could of this new and foreign world of urban Detroit.

I was amazed at how many people were out on the road. This was the coldest day so far this December. A few were waiting at bus stops on Eight Mile or Woodward or Grand. Some were walking briskly, determined to reach their warm destinations as quickly as possible. But most of them did not seem to have any real reason for being on the road. Most of them seemed to be just standing. They seemed to be waiting, but for nothing.

Then my eyes caught a glimpse of him. The grey beard hinted that he was an older gentleman. He was walking down Woodward with his shopping cart, pushing around what seemed to be all of his belongings. I had seen similar scenes when I was working with churches in urban Houston, Dallas, and St. Louis, but this picture captured me in a new way. The streets were lined with glorious old church buildings and cathedrals, dressed and ready to celebrate Christ’s birth, yet this man pushed everything he owned with no place to rest. He journeyed down the street, hoping to find some way to escape the biting December wind, while wrought iron fences guarded church yards and locked doors protected majestically decorated sanctuaries.

“Mary gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn” (Lk. 2:7). There is a powerful, ironic twist in the way things happened that first Christmas. While the religious and political leaders of the day found peace behind the closed walls of their own homes, God broke into the world in a stable. I would have imagined Mary giving birth as God’s presence descended on the Temple in Jerusalem. He could have at least found some shelter in the local Synagogue. But the doors were closed. There was no room for God at the inn.

We could think that this was just happenstance, a mere case of bad timing. But God chose to reveal himself in human history through the birth of Jesus Christ in a stable in the poorest sector of Israel. Really, should we expect anything less? God became flesh as the “least of these.”

During the holiday season, we anxiously anticipate Christmas day. On that day we celebrate Christ’s birth and welcome him into our world again. Yet, while we wait for Christmas, let us never forget that each day Christ still roams the streets and knocks on the doors of houses and churches trying to find a room at the inn.

“For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me” (Mt. 25:35).