The Innkeeper Makes Excuses...

Here's a little poem that I really love about missing Christ, written from the Inn-Keeper's perspective.  Teaches us to always be aware that He comes to us disguised not as a King but as a beggar, poor and in need and when we least expect Him.  Wonder how astonished the Keeper of the Inn that night will be on resurrection day when he discovers Who it was He turned away.  Wonder if we will be too...

The Inn-Keeper Makes Excuses

Edgar Guest 

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"Oh, if only I had known!"

     Said the keeper of the inn.

"But no hint to me was shown,

     And I didn't let them in.

"Yes, a star gleamed overhead,

     But I couldn't read the skies,

And I'd given every bed

     To the very rich and wise.

"And she was so poorly clad,

     And he hadn't much to say!

But no room for them I had,

     So I ordered them away.

"She seemed tired, and it was late

      And they begged so hard, that I

Feeling sorry for her state,

     In the stable let them lie.

"Had I turned some rich man out

     Just to make a place for them

'Twould have killed, beyond a doubt,

     All my trade at Bethlehem.

"Then there came the wise men three

     To the stable, with the morn,

Who announced they'd come to see

     The great King who had been born.

"And they brought Him gifts of myrrh,

     Costly frankincense and gold,

And a great light shone on her

     In the stable, bleak and cold.

"All my patrons, now are dead

     And forgotten, but to-day

All the world to peace is led

     By the ones I sent away

"It was my unlucky fate

     To be born that Inn to own,

Against Christ I shut my gate—

     Oh, if only I had known!"

From Collected Verse of Edgar Guest

NY:Buccaneer Books, 1976, pg. 614