A House for God

December 24, 2023 homily on 2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16 and Luke 1:26-38 by Pastor Galen

Like many of you, for the past few weeks our family has been cleaning, organizing, and decorating the house as we’ve been preparing to host our families for Christmas. At the same time, I’ve also been fixing up a room to serve as a guest room for when we have out-of-town guests stay over, and I’ve doing some other light repairs around the parsonage—scraping cracked and peeling paint, spackling, and repainting some of the walls and trim.

I don’t know if this happens to you or not, but when I’m busy cleaning or fixing things in one part of the house, I start to notice all of the other areas of the house that need attention as well. I clean or organize one room, and then I walk into the next room and I’m even more attuned to the dust and cobwebs in that room! Or, I repaint the walls, and I notice that the trim could really use a fresh coat of paint as well!

A Dwelling Place for God

Well, a similar thing happened to King David. David has just finished building a palace for himself—although I’m sure he didn’t actually build it, but rather he supervised the people who supervised the people who built it! But either way, once David was all settled into his new place, he started looking around his kingdom to see what else needed to be done, while he was living in a beautiful palace made of cedar, God didn’t really have a proper house at all! 

The Ark of the Covenant, which symbolized God’s presence among the people, was being stored in a tent, and had been housed there for approximately 300 years, ever since the Israelites had been wandering in the wilderness after God miraculously freed them from slavery in Egypt! Apparently, even after they got settled into the promised land of Canaan, and all throughout the time of the judges and the reign of Israel’s first king, King Saul, no one had ever thought to build a more permanent dwelling place for God. By this time, the tabernacle must have been tattered and frayed, or perhaps they had patched and repatched so many times, that hardly any of the original materials were left! Either way, David just thought that it didn’t seem right for God to live in a tent, while he was living in a beautiful palace.

And so David told the prophet Nathan that he was going to build a temple—a permanent dwelling place for the Lord, and Nathan said, essentially “go for it!” (my paraphrase of 2 Samuel 7:3). But then Nathan went and spent some time praying and listening to the Lord, and God said to David, through the prophet Nathan (my paraphrase here) “Really, you’re going to build me a house? When did I ever say that I wanted a house? I’ve been moving about in a tent ever since I brought up the people of Israel from Egypt. And I’ve never asked anyone to build me a house made of cedar! (my paraphrase of 2 Samuel 7:6-7)”

A God Who is On the Move

It seems that God liked the symbolism of living in a house or a tabernacle because it represented God’s presence moving in and among and with the people. 

In fact, if we look throughout Scripture, we see that God has always desired to be with people, to live right in their midst, to move in and among them. Even before the Creation of the World, God’s Spirit moved over the waters (Gen. 1:2). In the Garden of Eden, before sin entered the world, God walked and talked with Adam and Eve in the cool of the day (Gen. 3:8). 

Throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, God showed up in surprising ways and in surprising places—among the visitors who visited Abraham, in the burning bush to speak to Moses,  and in the fiery furnace with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Time and time again, God showed up where people least expected, manifesting God’s presence in and among God’s people.

Not only that, but throughout the Bible God made it clear that God could never be confined to one place — not least of which a stone monument or a building! As God later said through the prophet Isaiah “Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool; so what kind of house could you build for me, what sort of place for me to rest?” (Isaiah 66:1). 

In this way, the tent, or tabernacle, was the perfect symbol of God’s desire to be present and active and on the move with God’s people. And so God would not allow David to build God a temple. 

God Shows Up in a Womb

Fast forward about 1,000 years to the time when Jesus was about to be born. During those 1,000 years, the Jewish people had built and rebuilt the temple. King David’s son, Solomon, actually, built the first temple, which was later destroyed by the Babylonians. And the Jewish people rebuilt the temple starting during the time of the prophet Zechariah. 

But ever since they had rebuilt the temple, the Jewish people had this sense that God’s presence was not in the temple. And they longed for God’s presence to come and dwell with them again, in the dwelling place that they had built for God.

But instead, God once again showed up in a surprising place. And this time it wasn’t a stone temple or monument, or even a burning bush or a fiery furnace, but rather the womb of a virgin by the name of Mary! 

As the angel of the Lord said to Mary, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. (Luke 1:30-31).

Mary wondered how this could be, and the angel said, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God” (Luke 1:35).

Talk about a God who shows up in surprising places! God, who could not be contained in a stone monument or temple, came to this earth, and took on human flesh, and was born as a baby!

Thirteenth-century monastic writer John the Monk said it this way,

“Wonder! God is come among humanity; he who cannot be contained is contained in a womb; the timeless enters time, and great mystery: his conception is without seed, his emptying past telling! So great is this mystery! For God empties himself, takes flesh and is fashioned as a creature…”

God at Home in Us

As surprising as this may be, when we step back and look at it, we realize that God taking on flesh, and dwelling among as a living, walking, breathing person, is actually very much in keeping with God’s desire to tent or tabernacle among God’s people. In fact, in the Gospel-writer John’s poetic retelling of the Christmas story, John tells us, “And the Word became flesh and [dwelt/tabernacled] among us” (John 1:14a). In Christ, God came and dwelt among people, a physical and tangible expression of the way God’s Spirit has always been moving in and amongst God’s people, ever since the time of Creation. 

And even today, Christ desires to dwell among us. But again, God is not looking for physical temples or memorials. Rather, after God says through the prophet Isaiah, “What sort of house could you build for me?“ (Isaiah 66:1), God goes on to say, “But there is something I’m looking for: a person simple and plain, reverently responsive to what I say.” (Isaiah 66:2 MSG). 

In this way, the virgin Mary is a representation of what God desires of each and every one of us. Mary, said “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word” (Luke 1:38). And so too God desires that we would open up our homes and our lives and allow Christ to dwell, or tabernacle with us.

Indeed, this is the dwelling place God longs for: “a person simple and plain, reverently responsive to what I say.” 

May we, like Mary, open our hearts and our homes to welcome Christ in. May we be reverently responsive to whatever it is God has called us to do. May we open our hearts and our homes to let Christ dwell with us. May we learn to recognize and respond to the movement of God in our lives, whether at work or at home or at school. May we open our hearts and allow Christ to abide in us, wherever we may go. 

Amen!