Something Special at Leonard's Inn, Benjamin Potter [e book reading free .txt] 📗

Contents

Introduction to new edition 6

Author’s Note 9

1. Leonard’s Inn 11
2. Shepherd’s Night 17
3. Angel Sky 22
4. Courtyard Memories 31
5. Manger Child 37

About the Author 43

Appendix: You Can Know Jesus 44


Introduction to New Edition

This new edition of Something Special at Leonard’s Inn has some corrections that the original needed but didn’t get. I sincerely hope that you will be inspired to let the Lord of the Nativity invade your life like he did to an innkeeper and his family long ago.

My hope is that you will fall in love with the stories of Christmas as much as I have over the years. The story of Leonard grew out of a request from my mother one Christmas to prepare something related to the original Christmas story to share with the family on Christmas morning. At the time I was also working through a series of sermons at the Zion Hill Baptist Church of Linden, Texas, centered on the stories of Christmas. The result of these events was the fictional story you have in your hands.

In the course of the story, my hope is that everything that you read will be faithful to the event that inspired this writing. As well, I hope that you will enjoy this retelling of a familiar story enough to check out my other biblical fiction.

Dear reader, sit back, relax, and enjoy this retelling. Let it inspire you to read the real accounts found in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John of the New Testament. While I didn’t sit down to write romance, I hope that you find some of the elements of that genre here. If you have to wipe a tear or two because of the emotion that finds the pages, then you will begin sharing with me the love for Christmas that has gripped me since childhood.

Finally, my hope is that Christmas will become for you more than trees and lights and gifts because the holiday belongs to the One whose birth we celebrate. As I stated in my original introductory note to this story, I believe that the innkeeper is one of the heroes of the story. Even so, he is not the focus of the story.

Again, enjoy the story again as I continue to enjoy bringing it to you. This is, by the way, the third rendition of the full story. The original appeared in 1999, the second one was published along with a story about Joseph the earthly father of Jesus in 2006.

Merry Christmas and may God bless,
Benjamin Potter
Mulberry Grove 2008


Author’s Note

I have always wondered how the people who truly witnessed the first Christmas might have reacted. The shepherds who first heard of the Child from an angel in the sky, the inn keeper who opened his home to the young couple in need of a room. I have often felt that the inn keeper has been treated badly throughout history, but we must remember that he provided a place for the Savior to be born even when the town was full. This is a work of fiction. The actions and words are purely the imagination of the author. Perhaps we should all consider how we would react if we were in the sandals of the shepherds or the inn keeper.
I would like to thank several people who have been instrumental in the process of creating this work. Kay Stephens, librarian extraordinaire, thank you for the editing and advice. The members of the Zion Hill Baptist Church are to be thanked for their patience with a young pastor and his whims about Christmas. Thomas and Jane Potter, you are the best parents I can imagine. Your encouragement and advice throughout life have been immeasurable. And especially, I would like to thank the Savior who was born on that first Christmas day because without Him there would be no life. His very presence brings peace to the human heart.


1
Leonard’s Inn

Leonard and Sarah were anxious about the taxing. Sure it would bring in extra business for the struggling inn, and how they needed the extra business. But along with all the extra business came the beggars, liars, and thieves. Bethlehem was filling up with more and more people claiming kinship to King David. Oh well, Leonard decided that he would make the best of the hectic situation.
“I’m telling you, Leonard, you should do just as your cousin Reuben is, out on Jerusalem Road,” Sarah was always giving advice. “ You will be able to weather the long dry spell to follow Caesar’s proclamation if you will simply double, or better yet triple, your prices.”
“We have been over this, Sarah. I will not stoop to gouging my kinsmen with unfair pricing,” Leonard was shaking his head in that fatherly way that Sarah had grown to love and to hate over the years of their marriage. “We will have plenty simply by sectioning off the common room for families and travelers. And they will all pay a fair price. No more; no less. You see how the inn has been filling up. We will be out of space before the night is over. The Lord will provide for the dry spells as they come.”

With the decree from Caesar Augustus, people from all over the Empire were flooding into the city of David to be registered and taxed according to their wealth, family size, and age. Leonard was almost prophetic in his prediction of space availability. He overheard the last two travelers saying that they were surprised that they were paying regular rates for the last two beds in town. Other hostellers were completely full although they had been charging two and three times the normal price for a mat on the floor. They had a friend that was paying seven times the going rate out on Jerusalem Road just to have a blanket strung up between his family and an old couple from Bethany. That Reuben, he is a shrewd one, Leonard smiled to himself, shaking his head in bewilderment.
He was just finishing the sign that said “No Room” when he saw them out the window. The young couple couldn’t have been married long. They were young. They young man appeared to be no more than twenty or twenty-two. He led a shabby-looking donkey that was carrying the youth’s wife who was “great with child.” Leonard’s heart went out to them. He could tell they were weary from traveling. He opened the door, the newly-painted sign hanging absently from his hand.
“Sir, I was going to see if you had any rooms left for my small family, but I see that you, too, have no space available,” the young man’s voice was tired and resigned, but he began to turn away to head on down the street.
“Wait! Young man, your wife cannot travel any farther in her condition. The streets are filled with thieves and robbers. The night is quickly approaching.” Leonard seemed to be beside himself, but for some reason he could not explain, he felt the need to help this young family. “Wait here just inside the door. I will see if there is not some space for you.”
Leaving the donkey tied to the post outside, the young man lifted his wife down and followed the inn keeper inside. With the door closed to the hustle and bustle of a city swelled to five times its size because of the registry, the poor family leaned heavily against the wall and one another as Leonard stepped to the back of the house. When he returned he found Sarah showing them out.
“ . . . I wish we could accommodate you, but as you can see, there just is no room. I am sure that Lemuel down the street—”
“Sarah!” Leonard’s voice fairly bellowed from the doorway that led to the animal stalls behind the inn. “You will not cast these poor travelers out while I am still in this household!” Taking his wife by the arm and pulling her aside, Leonard lowered his voice, but not the stern reproach it held, “On a night like this, you know that Lemuel will take even the cloak off of this poor man’s back. He might even confiscate the wretched animal they came in on. You can see that they are in no shape to travel further, and I have Daniel clearing a space out back. It is only a stable, but it will be out of the wind and away from the criminals who have made their way to our village to rob travelers of what is left after the likes of Reuben and Lemuel get finished.” To the young couple Leonard said, “My name is Leonard. You are welcome to a space in the stable out back to stay while you are here to register.”
“Thank you, Leonard. Yours is the first kindness we have seen since arriving in the town of my forefathers. My name is Joseph, and as you can see my wife, Mary, is near the time that she will give birth to the child,” the young man reached for his purse as he spoke.
“Put that away,” Leonard said, “what I offer is no more than a meager space in the stable with straw to make you comfortable. How can I charge money for the use of a barn stall?” Sarah glared after them as Leonard led the couple around to the stable behind the inn. Mary silently smiled her gratitude.

The noise in the street had started to subside when Sarah was called upon to help deliver the young woman, Mary’s, baby. As she was hard at work she noticed the two men, Leonard and the vagrant Joseph, standing to the side looking awkward. “You, father. Make yourself useful. Put fresh straw in the manger. It is not a grand cradle, but it will do for this night.” She turned her attention to her own husband, “And you, inn keeper who gives away lodging to any and all passers-by, go into our quarters. There are some soft cloths we can use to protect this new baby when he comes. Bring them to me, and be quick about it!”
Wrested from their wonderment at the birth of a child, the two men turned to the tasks assigned. When Leonard returned, Sarah was cleaning the young boy-child and getting him ready for the swaddles he had brought from the inn. The baby seemed to glow. Leonard knew that there was something different about this family. He knew that he had done something special that night.


2

Shepherd’s Night

Jerome was getting old. He knew his business, and he was glad that he had his nephews, Isaac and Josiah, to help in looking after the growing herd. Sure, the boys were impetuous and would sometimes get caught sleeping when they should be alert, but they were young . . . and they were learning. The stars were particularly bright that night as Jerome began to contemplate his age and his youth. He remembered the days when he would seek out ways to make the mundane job of watching the sheep more interesting, the games he and the other young shepherds played, the jokes they would try to put over on the old men. A sad smile touched his lips as he remembered the time when he and his cousin Joshua had run the entire herd through the courtyard of Leonard’s inn.
They had all been young and