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The centurion’s menacing scowl signalled impending danger. No-one desired to be on the receiving end of his hostility, brought about by a hot and frustrating day. Flavian’s posting in Judea seemed to him, to be a cruel, demoralizing demotion. “Stubborn, insolent Jews!” he hissed under his breath. Among the waiting, humiliated Jews, a palpable, seething animosity was dangerously building beneath the surface, almost ready to erupt.
Augustus Caesar had ordered every man to the place of his birth, to be numbered in the census. All day long Flavian had contended with the parade of obstinate, bitter Jews. He preferred to be back in Jerusalem and enjoying a long hot bath. But, that would not be possible tonight. To his distain, he was stationed in Bethlehem until the census was completed.
The tiny town with its census swollen population, was facing a lodging crisis. He needn’t worry though. A wry smile straddled Flavian’s dust encrusted face. He felt elated that he could enjoy the best lodging Bethlehem had to offer, while the Jews were left to fight it out among themselves, searching for accommodation in their own place of birth. The twist of fate delighted the centurion.
Another hour and the setting sun would dismiss this wretched god-forsaken day, Flavian thought. His attention turned again to the arduous routine of counting men. The Jews nerves were frayed, their bodies bone weary. They had traversed from the Roman empires farthest corners.
Dust flung up by hundreds of passing travellers had congealed on Flavian’s sweat covered face. The coarse Judean dust always made his skin itch. His fatigued mind drifted to pleasant memories of his own homeland,...holidaying on the banks of the Tiber, his doting family and faithful friends, the exhilaration of Roman entertainment and lavish banquets among Rome’s elite citizens.
“Next!” The soldier’s shrill demand snapped Flavian back to reality - the never-ending line of Jews to be counted. “Name?” the soldier barked at the man standing next in the line. “Joseph, from the House of David.” was the measured reply, “And my wife, Mary.” Five gruelling days travelling from the northern town of Nazareth, with his heavily pregnant wife, just culminated with these ten words.
Seeing the pregnant woman, somehow arrested the centurion’s heart. He followed the couple with his eyes, as they left the counting booth, to begin the almost futile search for appropriate lodging. The congested streets were a concoction of men and heavily laden beast, all vying for a night haven. Flavian realised that the woman would deliver her child during the night. “Just another Jew destined to irritate me.” he thought. Sudden exhaustion engulfed the centurion’s soul.
The middle-aged inn-keeper, was annoyed with having to constantly repeat the same phrase: “Sorry, there’s not a room left!” Weary with the pressing demands of so many travellers, he rose from his hurried meal to answer the urgent pounding on the door. Happy to momentarily escape the noisy din of belligerent Roman soldiers and vexed Jewish guests, all clamouring simultaneously for their evening meal, he opened the door ready to repel the next inquirer. He noted the traveller’s question was identical to all the others, but the circumstances were different. The woman was with child, and the child’s birth imminent. “Shalom!” Joseph greeted the inn-keeper. “My wife is soon to deliver, tonight! Do you have a room for us?” Stroking his greying beard, the man scanned his tired mind for a suitable resolution to the immediate crisis. After a prolonged silence, he smiled, the only one he had managed throughout his harried day. “Yes, well, actually,...its not a room, it’s a stable. But, it’s furnished with fresh hay.”
The inn-keepers demeanor seized the attention of the centurion, still curiously watching the man and pregnant woman’s desperate plight. Benevolent and courteous among themselves, even though they bear the brunt of vicious Roman dictatorship. Flavian pondered this stark reality. What is it that sustains them? Perhaps, we Romans are brute dogs after all? he mused, trying to fathom the corrupted ‘justice’ of the empire he loyally served with his sword.
Observing that the man and woman were granted a safe place to deliver their baby, Flavian sighed deeply. A sudden repulsion for Rome’s strangling regime struck his heart, which was instead, being drawn irresistibly towards Yahweh, the Jew’s God of Justice and Mercy.
The centurion, overcome by an acute inner heaviness, quietly turned and trudged towards his own lodging for the night, the best hotel in town.
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