This Bastard is a King

Actually there is room for Mary and Joseph in the Inn. Plenty of rooms are available, but not for this heavily pregnant teenage girl who looks like she’s about to pop at any minute. Can you imagine the mess if she gives birth to her child in one of these rooms? Besides, why are they staying in a hotel in the first place? Aren’t there some relatives in Bethlehem they could stay with?

In fact Joseph does have relatives in his ancestral hometown, but word travels quickly. They found out that his fiancé Mary got pregnant and word on the street is that he’s not the father. They tell him “Don’t come around here Joe, you’re not welcome in our house. Your slut girlfriend is making a fool of you Joe. You need to dump this girl.”   

These two shouldn’t have been traveling in the first place, but by Imperial decree everyone has been ordered to return to their hometown to register for a census. The oppressive empire wants to precisely count its subjects to know just how much can be extracted from them.

Mary is misunderstood and reviled for what people say she has done. How could a woman who had such a great partner go out and get pregnant by another man? She is called a bitch, a whore, an ingrate skank. One day when the baby inside of her is all grown up, the Pharisees will drag a woman caught in adultery before him and ask whether or not to stone her to death. “You without sin throw the first rock,” he’ll reply. Perhaps in their question he hears the voices of his mother’s accusers.

For his part, Joe is incredibly ambivalent about the affair with Mary. He deeply loves her, a rare extravagance in a time and culture where marriage is more about contract than passion. Yet he is so stunned and hurt by her pregnancy. When she starts talking about the child being ‘conceived by God’ it only adds to his confusion and despair. He has in mind to quietly break it off when the child comes. Perhaps she’ll be able to start over with someone else.

Yet here he is, pleading with the manager of this inn to not put them out to the street. The manager is a ruthless, normally heartless man. But the thought of this poor girl giving birth out in the open manages to bother even him. He puts them in a stable that he’s dug out of the side of a hill, far in the back of the property. Hopefully no one will know they are back there.

Mary and Joseph stay back there for several tense, yet mundane days. They have had some bad moments in their relationship, but this is a definite low point. In the late afternoon on the third day Mary’s water breaks and she goes into labor.

What follows is a harrowing, terrifying day and a half experience. Joseph does what he can to make her comfortable. He runs to get her water, he wipes her brow. The first night passes in total darkness. She is in excruciating pain. By the morning of the second day, the other guests know that there is a woman in the back stable giving birth. It is a scandal, a total loss of face. Joseph is filled with shame, while Mary is in too much agony to care either way.

The experience damn near kills her, but in the wee hours of the third day she gives birth to her firstborn, a son. When the baby comes out, everything else comes out with him: feces, urine, water, placenta and blood. Long before the blood of her son symbolizes redemption and forgiveness, Mary’s blood covers this symbol of hope for the world. The stable is a complete disaster, just as the innkeeper knew it would be. She wraps her baby in strips of cloth and places him in a manger. Completely exhausted by the ordeal, Mary collapses onto a makeshift bed Joe has set up for her.

Joe looks down at this yet unnamed baby. There in the manger – the feeding trough, where half eaten animal food and horse slobber is crusted to the side – lies the supposed hope for humanity. It’s fragile and tiny. It needs to be protected, nurtured, grown and guided, but here lies hope. The king who will one day overthrow the empire that put him in this manger in the first place, is born.

 ***

The next few days are strange. Mary begins to recover somewhat. She is nursing the baby and beginning to bond with him. The innkeeper and other guests will have absolutely nothing to do with this shameful family. They ignore them completely.

But everyday random people start showing up to this stable in the back of an inn. First some poor shepherds come by wanting to see the baby. Then people from town come, saying they’ve heard important things about this boy, that he is the hope. Finally, three sages from far off Babylon arrive telling Mary and Joe that they’ve spent the past year looking for this child. They’ve brought expensive gifts to honor him and the family.

Joe is stunned. Could it be that what Mary has been telling him all along is true? On the eighth day, enough people have come by that he is feeling bold enough to name the baby. He calls him Yeshua, after the strong Hebrew general that brought his people into the promised land. It was the name given to him in the dream, the one he couldn’t believe was true.

Could it be, that here in the midst of all this mess, lies the hope that will bring all their dreams to fruition? Peace on earth and goodwill between man and God?

As the weeks and months and years and centuries go by, more people continue to come, from all walks of life, from all corners of the globe, to proclaim that this bastard is a king.