Children of Bethlehem - Stable Boy

CHILDREN OF BETHLEHEM

STABLE BOY

By Robert Allen

“She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.”  Luke 2:7

A monolog for a teen-age boy.

            I’m pretty tired today, but it is a good kind of tired.  I wouldn’t have missed what happened last night for all the sleep in the world. 

            Actually I just about did miss it.  I was finishing mucking out the cattle stall, my last job for the evening, getting ready to head home when I heard a soft knock on the wooden post by the doorway.   I just figured it was another guest from the inn wanting a place for his donkey to stay so I was really surprised to see not only a man with a donkey, but a woman as well.  And not just any woman.  This was a woman who was going to have a baby.  I had seen my own mother in that condition many times.  After all, I am the oldest of seven children. 

            I could see that the two of them were tired.  They must have had a long day of travel.  But the man’s voice was soft and gentle.  “Excuse me, but the innkeeper said you might have a place for us to stay.”

            “You mean for your donkey to stay?”  I couldn’t believe the innkeeper would actually have suggested they all stay in the stable.  It was certainly no place for a woman in that condition.

            “No.  He didn’t have even one more room in the inn.  But he thought maybe we would at least have some shelter here in the stable.”

            I bowed then, to usher them through the door.  I’m not sure why I did it, but it seemed like the right way to invite them into my stable.  Actually I was pretty proud of the place.  I did my best to keep it clean for the animals.  It still smelled like a stable, but it was more the smell of fresh hay than it was of offal.  I had been in stables in Bethlehem which smelled far worse, let me tell you.

            “Do you have some water and maybe some clean rags,” the man said in his quiet voice.  “I think the baby is coming.”

            I ran then, as fast as I could, back to our house.  Grabbed a jug of water and some rags without even stopping to tell my mother anything.  By the time I got back to the stable it had already happened.  The man was holding a new-born baby, right there in my stable.  I set down the jug of water, handed him the rags and grabbed some fresh hay for the manger so there would be a place for the baby to sleep.

            And sleep he did.  All through the rest of the night even when the shepherds came to tell us about the angels and their message of joy to the world.  None of the rest of us got any sleep, let me tell you.  It was the busiest my stable has been in all the time I have been working for the innkeeper.  But the baby just lay there in my manger as calm and peaceful as he could be.  Just like he was the king of the world or something.  I suppose it was silly to think of him as a king, what with him being born in a stable and all.  I mean, what king would ever be born in a stable?

            But this was my stable.  And I was proud that they had come to me for help.  The angels said he was the Messiah, so just maybe he will be a king.  I don’t know.  But I do know this.  He can be king of my stable any time.