Why didn't God book a room for His son? Thoughts by Jo Wanmer

Why didn’t the Father book a room for His son? He wasn’t taken by surprise the day Jesus entered the world. He could have organised somewhere…after all He is God.
(Image from FreePik)

‘No room in the inn’ seems a poor excuse. Jesus’ Father could have booked weeks earlier. God can orchestrate these things.  A few years ago, we decided on Tuesday to go away for the weekend. It was Easter. So two days before we left, I searched for a quiet place to rest and recover. I found a lovely cottage–overlooking a river valley, less than two hours away. When we arrived it was the perfect place for us. We asked the hosts why it was still available. They shrugged, puzzled themselves. They’d been booked solid nearly all year - except Easter!

If God could organise a room for me, why didn’t He do the same, if not for his Son, then for Mary. A young girl still a virgin untouched and inexperienced in the realities of women’s struggles. She had to labour on the floor of a barn.

But maybe the stable was not a mistake or an oversight.

Could it have been God’s idea? 

The rest of Jesus’ life seemed to follow a plan.  The clue is in the angel’s message to the shepherds.

“For today in Bethlehem a rescuer was born for you. He is Lord Yahweh, The Messiah. You will recognise him by this miracle sign: You will find a baby wrapped in strips of cloth and lying in a feeding trough!” Luke 2:11-12 The Passion Translation.

It’s a miracle, not a mistake, that the baby lay in a feeding trough, wrapped in strips of cloth. The Bible footnotes led me to search further. (Image from Public Domain)

It wasn’t just any shepherds the angels appeared to. They were shepherd priests – men charged with watching over the lambs bred especially for sacrifice. Scholars believe the Bethlehem shepherds were caring for the lambs being prepared for Passover. Every sacrifice had to be presented spotless, without blemish. When they were born, the shepherds wrapped their bodies and legs in strips of cloth and laid them in feeding troughs. This protected them until they steady on their feet.

How Amazing! Jesus, the Lamb of God, destined to be offered for your sin and mine at the festival of Passover, was born in the same place and treated the same way as a Passover Lamb. 

The Word tells us Jesus fulfilled every bit of the law…even to being born in like manner to the lambs for hundreds of years before Him.

Jesus’ Father, God, made sure there was no room at the inn, just as He ensured Joseph would have to take Mary to Bethlehem. 

Thirty-three years later the man, Jesus, would ride into to Jerusalem on a donkey, thus fulfilling many Scriptures. On the same day, the shepherds would have been herding their sheep into Jerusalem. Each Hebrew family selected a lamb and took it home to care for it until they were sacrificed, in accordance with Moses instructions. That sacrifice happened five days later, in the temple in Jerusalem, at the same time Jesus, our Passover lamb, hung on the cross; dying so the world might live.

Our Heavenly Father is a father of details. Mary, like us, may not have understood why her miracle baby was laid in a manger but her baby’s Father knew what He was doing! That’s why He didn’t have a room waiting.

Mary trusted. Can we too trust God when we don’t understand? Can we trust God to orchestrate the plots in our stories, to bring out every tiny detail? Bring the document alive? I believe we can! Do you?

May you have a happy and blessed day as you celebrate the miracle of our Saviour’s birth.

Jo Wanmer lives in Brisbane, Qld with her Husband Steve. Together they run a business and help pastor Access Church at Burpengary. Her first book, Though the Bud be Bruised, won a Caleb award for best Unpublished Manuscript and was published in 2012. Three more books are  written, but not yet published. Due to health and family matters, Jo hasn’t written for the last two years. Please pray that she can find her keyboard again in 2019.

Who plants the seed?

   At this stage of history Mary must have been feeling pretty uncomfortable.  She was nine months pregnant, or near enough. It was likely summer and she had to travel to Bethlehem. The destination was about 130 kilometres from Nazareth. If she wasn't already on the donkey, she would have been preparing for the trip. How do you prepare to spend five or six days on the back of a donkey when 'heavy with child'?
   Who could blame her if she now questioned her ready obedience to obey the angelic request. Not to mention God's timing. If He planned this child, couldn't he have organised it a little better so it didn't coincide with a census?
   However, she had replied to the angel, 'Be it to me as you have said.' So I'm sure she pushed ahead with little complaint.
   Producing a book has been likened to have a baby. It starts with a seed of an idea which quickly multiplies, grows and develops. There is the realisation that we have a book in the womb. We develop characters, themes, word pictures, plots, emotions. As each week passes, the concept develops. Details become clearer. Images are refined. Pushing ahead, we work hard, ignoring the cost and discomfort until we are ready to bring forth our literary masterpiece.
   And like babies, books are born everyday. But occasionally one, like Jesus, rises out of the crowd. There is something different about it. People start talking, maybe arguing and criticising. 
   Do you, like me long to have your writing noticed? Would you like your book to engender passionate discussion on Twitter causing everyone to talk about it. Of course, we would have to accept some low rankings and scathing reviews on Amazon. Maybe we would even have to field inflammatory emails. Would it be worth it?
   Take, for example, The Shack. It has 4,801 reviews on Amazon. One of them begins this way. 'A poorly written, philosophically bankrupt, theologically challenged airport novel.' Ouch! Some love the book. Others hate it. But millions have read it and, in the process, their thinking about God has been reignited.
   What made Jesus stand out of the crowd? It was all because of his Father! He was the Son of God, born for a purpose. 
  This raises a question. If we are the mother of our books, who is the Father? Who plants the seed in the womb of our thinking, that begins the creative process? Do we accept any old seed or are we more discerning? 
   Is there a possibility that God is looking for a womb where he can safely deposit a seed that will produce writings carrying his DNA. I believe our Father has fresh concepts to plant within us. He wants some of us to bring forth ideas previously unheard of. Some of these ideas will engender gossip and will be misunderstood. They will be radical and emotive. These books won't satisfy the established religious system, but will reflect the True God and His character. They will travel far beyond the Christian book market.
   Only the discerning recognised baby Jesus as God's son. Most passed Him off as Mary's illegitimate kid. They liked Him but didn't recognise who he was. 
   Some of you have written such books, seemingly passed off as unsuccessful. Maybe it is a case of timing. Or maybe, like John the Baptist, they are making way for the book that God is yet to deposit within you.
   Lets open our creativity to our amazing God. As we go into a new year, let us say with Mary,  'I am the Lord's servant. Let it be to me as you have said.'
   Lord, as you move across this Great Southland of the Holy Spirit, use us to spread your message of love and hope.' 


Jo Wanmer, lives in Brisbane with her patient husband, Steve. She is the author of 'Though the Bud be Bruised', and is nurturing the embryo of her next book deep within her mind.