A Tent of Flesh

 HOMILY, ST. PAUL’S, FOLEY – 4 ADVENT, YEAR B

DECEMBER 20, 2020 

 

TEXT:                        2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16; Luke 1:26-38

 

 

            In the first lesson today, we hear of King David’s yearning to build a house for God.  This is after peace had come to Jerusalem and David’s enemies had been put under his feet.  The year was likely about 1000 B. C.

 

            But the prophet Nathan tells David that it will not be David who will build the house of God.  Is it not enough that I have placed you on the throne?  Is it not enough that I have granted peace to your people? Indeed, I will make your name great forever.

 

            David longed for something he could not have.  David, as king, was a sign and symbol of God’s presence with the people of Israel.  It was his son, Solomon, who would build the Temple in Jerusalem, after David’s reign.  It would stand there in the heart of Jerusalem– as a beacon of God’s presence – for nearly 400 years.

 

            Until 587 BC.  It was then that Nebuchadnezzar and his Babylonian army would lay waste to the city, level the Temple, and carry the people of Jerusalem into exile.

 

            Later, another Temple was built. It was larger and grander than the first.  King Herod, the brutal tyrant, made it one of the most spectacular structures in the world.  It, too, pointed towards God’s presence with his people.  Jesus walked in its porticos and taught in its courtyards. But it, too, would be destroyed – this time by the Romans, in AD 70.

 

            Sometime after the destruction of the first Temple, synagogues arose – as the people of God were spread throughout the known world – as a sign of the presence of God. Their ancient remnants can be scene in Israel.  Churches would come much later but would represent something similar.

 

            All that misses an important point.  It is quite plain in the gospel lesson today.  God is telling Mary that she will bear a son, and that he will be a sign of God’s presence which is much greater than all the stones and mortar that could be constructed.

 

            It is the central Christian doctrine known as the Incarnation.  The 14^th verse of the first chapter of John’s gospel tells us: “And the word became flesh and lived among us.”  A more literal translation would be that God became human and pitched tent with us.

 

            That is a truth which resonates with the ages. In the days before the first Temple – in the days the first lesson describes today – the ark of the covenant, the sacred symbol of God’s presence, was in a tent.  As the people of Israel moved about, so did the tent.  God’s presence did not depart from the people.

 

            The incarnation – God becoming flesh – is a sign to us. God is one of us, he has walked in our shoes, he has known our pains, our griefs, our temptations, our joys, our loves.  We each have been marked with imago dei – the image of God.  And God has shown us that he never departs from our side.