The Inn and The Stable

When human history shall have written its last word in the scrolls of time, the saddest line of all will be “There was no room in the inn.” 

There was room in the inn for those who bore on their breasts the screaming eagles of Rome. There was room for the daughters of the rich merchants of the East, there was room for all clothed in fine purple and soft garments, there was room for everyone-except the foster-father and the mother of the One who was to bring redemption to the world. 

And so, away from the inn and out to the stable they had to go, to a crude cave into which shepherds drove their flocks in storms. In that little haven, with manger beasts as companions, and at a central point between the three great civilizations of Memphis, Athens, and Rome, something happened-the only thing in the world that ever happened and mattered. That which happened was nothing less than Heaven being found on the earth as the cry of God cried out in the cry of a Child. 

A startling paradox indeed. When God came to earth, there was no room in the inn, but there was room in the stable. What lesson is hidden behind the inn and the stable? 

Anyone in the world would have expected to have found Divinity in an inn, but no one would have expected to have found it in a stable. Divinity, therefore is always where you least expect to find it. 

The world would have searched for the Babe in some palace by the Tiber, or in some gilded house of Athens, or in some inn of a great city where gathered the rich, the mighty, and the powerful ones of earth. 

But they would have been surprised to have discovered Him in a manger, laid on coarse straw and warmed by the breath of oxen, as if in atonement for the coldness of the hearts of men. No one would have expected that the One whose fingers could stop the turning of Arcturus would be smaller than the head of an ox, that He who could hurl the ball of fire into the heavens would one day be warmed by the breath of beasts, that He who could make a canopy of stars would be shielded from a stormy sky but the roof of a stable, or that He who made the earth as His future home would be homeless at home. No one would have expected to find Divinity in such a condition, but that is because Divinity is always where you least expect to find it. 

Venerable Fulton J. Sheen