Some more quick thoughts from Chesterton, this one about “The Riddle of the Nativity.” In the Everlasting Man, Chesterton devotes two chapters (The God in the Cave; The Riddle of the Gospel) to the alien (that is, otherworldly) nature of the good news.

Have you ever stopped to think about the idiosyncrasies in the nativity/incarnation story? Thought about what exactly it meant for the Most High God of Heaven to be born below the earth? That is, if the traditional view of the stable in a cave is correct? There’s something topsy-turvy in that, in the whole of the Nativity story. Chesterton says that nothing else had happened except the whole world had turned inside out. All the eyes that were faced outward at the huge expanse of the universe were now turned inward at the smallest thing, a child in a feed trough.

Such a strange story. Everything about it is backwards. The omnipotent creator was born as an impotent babe. The eternal, everlasting Alpha and Omega lay in a manger, just minutes old. The Holy One of God emptied himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and born in flesh came into a world not worthy of his pinkie toe. And not only did those toes walk the earth among us, their owner washed the toes of his disciples. Out in the open you have the angels of heaven meeting with the shepherds on the hills, but the ruler of heaven was beneath the hills.

In Hebrews it says that we have a high priest who is able to sympathize with our plight. How many are there that can sympathize with his? If anyone in the entirety of human existence ever deserved a high birth, it was he, but he was born in a dank cave. Sure, there are persons who can (unfortunately) say they were born in a back-alley, or a brothel. There are even some kings who could say they were “born low”. But there is only one King of Kings who can say as much. There is only One was can say “I, God, was born in a cave.”

Note that that cave was most likely crowded with animals, since it was during the census; not exactly the most pristine conditions for birthing a child. And while the people in the inn rolicked about, their king was sleeping under their very noses. Have you ever thought about what it would have been like to be that inn keeper? You have the ponderously pregnant Mary, and the watchful, nervous Joseph, and you turn them out into the cold. Or hot. I honestly don’t know what time of year the census was at. I think I read that it actually might have taken place over a period of a couple years. Anyways, not only could this inn-keeper not find room for a very pregnant woman and her husband, not only did he turn this young couple aside, he turned aside his messiah. Now I know that probably this inn keeper never knew exactly who he had shut the door on. News of Jesus’ heritage might not have spread out to Bethlehem before this guy was gone. But what if it had? What if this person found out that the Promised One was born out among the animals because he didn’t have room. The thought sends chills down my spine. And, of course, perhaps I’m reading too much into it. Perhaps it was convention to not elevate expectant mothers, like we do (parking spaces and all). Perhaps there literally wasn’t any room, and the inn keeper had people sleeping on every surface, stoop to cellar, and he couldn’t admit more without turning out others. I guess we’ll find out in the millennial kingdom.

I’d like to end this post with a poem by Chesterton entitled Gloria In Profundis:

There has fallen on earth for a token

A god too great for the sky.

He has burst out of all things and broken

The bounds of eternity:

Into time and the terminal land

He has strayed like a thief or a lover,

For the wine of the world brims over,

Its splendour is split on the sand.

Who is proud when the heavens are humble,

Who mounts if the mountains fall,

If the fixed stars topple and tumble

And a deluge of love drowns all-

Who rears up his head for a crown,

Who holds up his will for a warrant,

Who strives with the starry torrent,

When all that is good goes down?

For in dread of such falling and failing

The fallen angels fell

Inverted in insolence, scaling

The hanging mountain of hell:

But unmeasured of plummet and rod

Too deep for their sight to scan,

Outrushing the fall of man

Is the height of the fall of God.

Glory to God in the Lowest

The spout of the stars in spate-

Where thunderbolt thinks to be slowest

And the lightning fears to be late:

As men dive for sunken gem

Pursuing, we hunt and hound it,

The fallen star has found it

In the cavern of Bethlehem.

Gilbert Keith Chesterton