The Back Story on the Real Christmas Pt. 2 by Chris White

Traditional Cave of Nativity in Bethlehem today

Was Jesus really born in a stable?  In the Holy Land, the Church of the Nativity is built over a small cave in Bethlehem where it is believed Jesus was born.  Again, there is good reason to believe this since people did use caves for their livestock and even sometimes as homes in this part of the world.  If this is the case, the wooden barn that is frequently depicted on Christmas cards or store bought crèches is entirely inaccurate.  It could also mean that Joseph and Mary’s shelter for the night of the nativity while modest was not terrible.  Caves, especially ones carved into the soft stone of Israel, can hold a temperature that is warmer than the outside air.  It is the wooden barns of our experience that can be quite chilly at night.  If this be the case, the stable Jesus was born in outside of Bethlehem looked more like a grotto than a barn.

There is also an alternative explanation for Jesus’ birthplace.  We are told in the story that there was ‘no room for Joseph and Mary at the inn’.  The word that is translated ‘inn’ is more commonly used for a guest room in a house.  Inns as we know them existed but were usually in towns on a major land route and were not usually used by Jews.  The Jews were a pilgrimage people traveling to Jerusalem for festivals and such and hospitality was a centerpiece of their culture.  People did not usually pay anything to stay in a person’s home because hospitality was a very reciprocal arrangement.

So, Bethlehem is swollen with people taking the census.  Joseph and Mary can’t find an open guest room, but they are given hospitality in the bottom floor of a wealthier person’s home where the animals are kept or in a single room of a poor person’s home where because of humble means they had to sleep with their animals.  This would also explain why in Matthew’s Gospel the wise men find them at a house perhaps they stayed there for a while.  Whether it was a shepherd’s cave or the bottom story of a house in Bethlehem, the main point is that the King of Kings came to earth in a humble way to identify with the human race he would eventually save through the cross.  He became like us, that we might become like Him.