She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn. – Luke 2:7

It is a scene that has been well rehearsed in our consciousness: Mary and Joseph, weary from their travels, knocking at the door of the inn, only to be denied entry. Mary, great with child, a look of quiet calm written on her face; Joseph, on the other hand, receives the inn-keeper’s words less graciously. “There is no room for you here.” It would seem Bethlehem was the ancestral home of many a 1st century Hebrew. Luke tells us that Caesar Augustus issued an imperial edict that “all the world should be registered,” (2:1), a decree befitting the prerogative of empire. Off-stage, Caesar Augustus beckons his subjects to yield to his sovereignty, to return home, to be counted among the citizens of Rome. Luke contrasts Caesar with another sovereign ruler who bids his followers to also return, to be counted not among the citizens of Rome, but the Kingdom of God.

“There is no room for you here.”

Maybe it was a sincere gesture; maybe it was to placate them; personally, I think he was just trying to get rid of them. Whatever his motive, the inn-keeper suggests the young husband bed down with his pregnant wife in the manger. The stable. With the animals. Scholars tell us the manger likely amounted to little more than a small cave. In contrast to the “good news” from Rome, this evangelion has import even for lowly shepherds. The one who was sent to proclaim “good news to the poor” identifies with the impoverished even at his birth. From the beginning, it seems, Jesus was a displaced person, one for whom the world will not make a place.

“There is no room for you here.”

How many times would He hear those words?

How often does He hear them still?