Bethlehem ‘innkeeper’ deserves some respect

Much has been written about the Christmas character known as the “innkeeper” in Bethlehem, but he is never specifically mentioned in the Bible. So, a number of religious commentators have “piled on” to criticize the innkeeper as a calloused man who bluntly told Joseph and Mary that “there was no room in the inn.”

 

However, one who cautions against “bashing” the innkeeper is the late Josiah W. Bailey II, who is one of the original “Fish House Liars” from Carteret County, N.C. 

His essay on this subject was published in the 1990 “Christmas Memories” edition of The Mailboat, a publication that originated in Harkers Island to preserve the heritage and culture of the Down East region.

Bailey’s humorous, story-telling, writing style makes the case that the Bethlehem innkeeper was not a Christmas curmudgeon. Rather, this fellow should go down in history as a “kindly, generous good man,” in Bailey’s opinion.

 

“It seems unfair” that the innkeeper is put down because he had no rooms in the inn, Bailey wrote. “The innkeeper didn’t know it was THEM! He was already in a scrape with a full house.”

“He suggested, ‘how ‘bout going out ‘chonder’ to the stable?’ It’s a heap more private than these crowded rooms.” The innkeeper told Joseph to feel free to “rearrange the cows an’ goats an’ stuff.”

After Baby Jesus was born in the manger, Bailey attests that angels, shepherds and wise men (or “kings from the eastard”) all arrived on cue to celebrate the Savior’s birth. 

Bailey’s version of the story includes the presence of a few other notable yuletide characters.

“To cap it all, a little boy with a drum came by a-beating the dang thing and singing ‘a-rumpa, dum, dum, me an’ my drum.’ While all this was going on, a dern reindeer with a red light up his nose was prancing around outside trying to direct traffic.”

 

“The folks up there in the inn must’ve thought it was an all-night tent revival out back there. But the innkeeper never uttered a word. He just put up with it. This sort of thing went on for several days, people coming and going, milling around, angels singing, sheep a-bleating and that youngern and his drum…a-rumpa, dum, dumming.”

“Seems to me, when you think seriously about it, he (the innkeeper) should be revered, not reviled (for having ‘no room in the inn’),” Bailey concluded.

By offering shelter in his stable, the innkeeper “was the first to offer hospitality, kindness and compassion – in short, LOVE – to Jesus, even while in His mother’s womb, and he did it not knowing it was HIM, not in hopes of any reward (earthly or heavenly).”

 

“It was an act of unself-conscious, sublime purity. Impelled only by a sense of identity with fellow humans in distress, he did what he was able to do in the circumstances; it was a generous and benevolent gesture from the heart.”

“That is the very embodiment of the message for which that little baby was born, lived and died. The innkeeper, whose name is unknown…was the foreshadow of the ministry of the haloed infant born in his stable.”

“This year, as you hear and sing ‘Away in a Manger,’ remember kindly the generous, good man whose manager it was.”

 Josiah W. Bailey II was a fun-loving, coastal Carolina guy who chose a laid-back lifestyle. 

His primary business was operating a 55-foot vessel to transport tourists from Morehead City over to Harkers Island and out to Cape Lookout National Seashore. He died in 1993 at age 71.

Bailey’s father, Josiah William Bailey of Raleigh, represented North Carolina in the U.S. Senate from 1931-46.