A very long time ago I made my first trip to Rome. They say all roads lead there. Among other things I went to see the great art in the Vatican, particularly the Sistine Chapel— Michelangelo’s masterpiece. It was certainly impressive but the colors of the paintings were subdued even sepia tones in places in the Last Judgment, and some of the prophets on the ceiling. Imagine my surprise when six years ago I went back, having heard reports of the massive cleaning job they had carefully done over many months in the Sistine Chapel, only to discover that now the Sistine Chapel was a riot of color—as if someone had used the whole Crayola Crayon box and colored over the old paintings.

Only as it turns out, Michelangelo had intended the paintings to have these bright vivid colors all along, even though it was a shock to the system and the art critics freaked out when this was first made known after the chapel reopened. The sense of shock, or even outrage was palpable and the ever rabid Italian press endlessly debated the merits of the new Sistine Chapel vs. the Old with great heat and passion. This is what happens when you tamper with a masterpiece.

At the risk of producing a similar response, I am here this morning to tamper with a masterpiece, or better said, to share with you a rather different reading of Lk. 2.1-7, one solidly grounded in the facts, but nowhere represented in the Christmas carols and pageants. I must tell you that I have heard endless sermons on how there was ‘no room in the end’ and wasn’t it typical of a cold fallen world to cast the holy family and Jesus out into the cold, and so on, often preached with great fervor, but producing no ferment at all. We’ve heard it countless times before. We’ve all been innoculated with a slight case of Christmas, preventing us from getting the real thing, or in this case from reading these texts in a more historical way. The problem with the Christmas pageant version is, this is not at all likely to be what Luke intends to tell us in this much beloved and belabored Christmas tale.

Let’s start with the first oddity of this tale. Jesus was born while Herod the Great was king of the Holy Land. That is to say, Jesus was born before 1-2 B.C. when Herod died in Judea. That is, Jesus was born B.C.—before Christ. How did this anomaly happen? Well its all the fault of Denny the Dwarf a.ka. Dionysius the medieval monk who was vertically challenged and while drawing up our modern calendar miscalculated the date of Jesus’ birth. As Maxwell Smart used to say—‘He missed it by that much’, which is to say about 3-4 years.

Then there is the second anomaly. Notice that Mary and Joseph are not married, they are only engaged. Why in the world would they both travel all the way to Bethlehem to register for the census when Mary was very pregnant indeed? It seems illogical at first, until we reflect again on that bit about her being very pregnant out of wedlock. The tongues were likely wagging back in Nazareth, a small town where one could not hide something like this. Mk.6 suggests that in fact the hometown thought Jesus was— well… how shall we put it delicately? I once had a bright little six year old girl in a British Sunday school class come up to me during the Christmas season and ask—“If God is Jesus’ Father, and Mary is Jesus’ mother, are God and Mary married? If not, is Jesus illegitimate?” Out of the mouths of babes….

More – http://benwitherington.blogspot.com/2007/12/no-inn-in-room-christmas-sermon-on-lk_09.html