The Israelites were nomads. They lived in tents and when the time came to seek new grazing land they moved herds and houses at the same time. What they did for a living and how they lived were beautifully adapted to each other.

After receiving the covenant of the Ten Commandments, Moses set aside one tent where the tribes would meet with God and remember and renew the covenant relationship. This was called the "Tent of Meeting," and it contained the Ark of the Covenant. It was "... a tent of meeting before the Lord, where I will meet with you, to speak there to you ... there meet with the people. It shall be sanctified by my glory" (Exodus 29:42). Here was a very early and primitive house of the Lord.

As all traditions do, this one began to evolve, adding ritual and artifact to make it always more suitable for its purpose. In time the Tent of Meeting, sanctified for God’s glory, came to be called "Sanctuary." Synonymously, it was called "Tabernacle," a dwelling place or abode for God. God was holy and his people were to be holy. When they failed in their efforts, a process for worship was set up to return them to holiness before God. As the covenant became more complex the rituals for restoring purity became more elaborate. The sacrificial system was meticulously worked out. Not only so, but detailed instructions were given for the accommodations of the Sanctuary. "According to all I show you concerning the pattern of the tabernacle, and of all its furniture, so you shall make it" (Exodus 25:9). This is a place where holy things were done, and in the holy of holies God dwelt in the presence of the ark.

When the Israelites settled down in towns and ceased to be nomads they became zealous to do as their sophisticated neighbors. The Canaanites had been urbanized centuries before the Israelites. David, in a passion of devotion and probably a desire to keep up with the Canaanites, went to Nathan the prophet with the prospect of building a permanent Temple for God’s dwelling place. "Here I am, living in a palace of cedar, and God dwells in a tent." He wanted to build a magnificent temple suitable for God’s dwelling place on earth. Nathan takes the matter to God and returns with the answer. God has not dwelt in a house since he brought his people out of slavery in Egypt.

Like all change, the proposal for a house of wood was suspect. The tent had been good enough for God in times of trial and uncertainty; why not good enough now? After all, it had always been done that way. But God’s message concluded with the promise that David’s son would build him a house, and God would establish his throne forever. In due time Solomon built a grand Temple as God’s dwelling place.

In our text yet another form of dwelling place is mentioned. Not only will God permit the building of a permanent house, he will also establish the house of David down through the years as a dynasty. In the lineage of David the purposes of God will dwell in invisible forces, while the immediate purposes of covenant relationship are carried out in a very tangible house. Little wonder that when people saw in Jesus the continuing purposes of God and the fulfilment of them, they looked back to the words of Nathan, "... the Lord will make you a house ... I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come forth from your body, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom for ever. I will be his father, and he shall be my son ... And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure for ever before me; your throne shall be established for ever."

This may seem foreign to our thinking. Very few of us see ourselves as "living" in a "house" made up of forebears and descendants. The concern with roots has done much to help us see ourselves this way. Consider the House of Rothschild, a major banking family in Europe which has continued for several centuries, maintaining its position, standards, and perpetuity. If we had been born to such a line we would have little trouble thinking of ourselves as a "house" made up of generations of descendants. Thus the concept of a "house" is established, if not forever, at least as a stable heritage for centuries for the family itself and the nation it serves. Something more than any one person dwells in the family line. People come and go, but the House of Rothschild, the House of Kennedy, and the House of Jones lives on.

With these bits of history in mind, the first chapter of Matthew opens to us with great meaning. It is the book of genealogy of Jesus the Son of David, the son of Abraham. Throughout the history of Israel God was present in the descendants of David, carrying forward his purposes until, in the person of Jesus, the time of waiting was fulfilled in a particular way. It was said of this man that the very word of God "tabernacled among us" (John 1:14). God came to dwell with us, not in tents, temples, nor family lines, but in a person, Jesus of Nazareth. All the prior dwelling places were transformed into human form and became incarnate in the flesh of a man, Jesus.

Jesus was often referred to as the Son of David. Two blind men called out to him, "Have mercy upon us, Son of David" (Matthew 9:27). And when he entered Jerusalem the people cried out "Hosanna to the Son of David!" (Matthew 21:9). And Jesus himself made clear that God no longer required a formal dwelling place. He was accused of saying that he could destroy the temple of God and build it up in three days. When brought before the Sanhedrin, he did not deny this claim (Matthew 26:61). By his death and resurrection he would effect a union between God and humankind that would be free from time and space limitations. To be in Christ was to be part of a continuously new form of dwelling place for God.

Paul picks up and extends these words of Jesus. "Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? God’s temple is holy and that you are" (1 Corinthians 3:16). In the same way that the body is the temple of God, so is the gathered community of those like-minded in Christ. God’s dwelling place is with humankind, and when he dwells there the person or the body of believers is the holy place, set apart for worship and service to the new covenant in Christ Jesus.

The Bible closes with a grand vision. In time to come, when the earth is no more and all of God’s purposes shall come to fulfillment in him, there shall be "no temple, for the temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb" (Revelation 21:22). We shall be in God and the Christ and need no formal dwelling place to help keep a faithful relationship.

This process was a long time a-building. The faithful waited sometimes more patiently than others, and from time to time their waiting was rewarded. When we consider the work that God was doing in his creation, then waiting in the right way seems part and parcel of his purpose.

What would we miss if waiting were eliminated from life? The deepest love stories, for one thing. You cannot name one that is not filled with this strange but common mystery: waiting is worked into the design of any true lover’s life. How could we ever find life if we were too impatient - too eager for a shallow species of gusto - ever to wait for it?*

* (Eugene Kennedy, A Time for Being Human, New York, Simon and Shuster, 1977, p. 193)

To be fully conscious that God was loving the world in his Son Jesus Christ is to come to terms with the redemptive power bequeathed to us by those who waited faithfully. It is through the heritage of the waiting-faithful that, from time to time, the fullness of God in the Christmas story shines through.

Good news! There is a tent of meeting where God and his people come together to remember the covenant, to rehearse its meaning for the day at hand, and to reaffirm the relationships it demands.

Good news! There is a place where God dwells in all his glory, his Sanctuary. Here he tabernacles with his people, and holy things are done to bring God and people together. Proper worship is exacted of those who handle holy objects. In it all God’s covenant love shines through.

Good news! God’s dwelling place is a Temple fit for his majesty. Gold, silver, elaborate curtains dividing the holy from the holy of holies, and the ark in its place for God’s throne when he is among the people. Here is the place where God can be approached and right relationships secured.

Good news! God’s investment in his chosen people goes beyond a single place built in a single time. In the living dynasty of David’s house, God places himself in history. In the House of David God will maintain his steadfast love, and David’s throne will be established forever.

Good news! God’s waiting has come to an end in a very unexpected way. In Jesus of Nazareth God has visited and redeemed his people. God causes his dwelling place with humankind to be in this man, Jesus; in him God tabernacles with us. Incarnate in the flesh, God dwells among us, full of grace and truth. A human being becomes the dwelling place of God - The Tent of Meeting, the Sanctuary, the Tabernacle, the Temple - the once for all meeting place of God with his creation. Long years of waiting resulted in the world’s deepest love story; the waiting faithful are rewarded with life-giving empowerment through him.

The House of Jesus remains as an extension of the House of David. Because of the incarnation the conviction has spread throughout the world that no tent, house, tabernacle, or temple can hold God. Though we invest our houses of worship with special meaning and practice the presence of God when we enter them for worship, we know that the people are the true temple of the Almighty. We constitute a spiritual house as we are in Christ and Christ in us. The holy objects are our attitudes, actions, worship, work, and witness. The very word "ecumenical" is testimony to the universal household of God and to all whose worship and service make it alive and vital.

Even as God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, so Christ is in the world reconciling the world to God. And, the world still waits in Christ for the final triumph of God’s Kingdom. We await that time when God shall come to be with us and there shall be no need for houses or temples at all, for "... the temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb" (Revelation 21:22).

This is the great vision. I freely admit just how visionary it is; but, I am likewise sure that visions keep a people alive and growing by holding before them what is ultimately in store. History has verified over and over again the insight of the wise, "Where there is no vision, the people perish; but he that keepeth the law, happy is he" (Proverbs 39:18). The church lives on the vision; indeed, the church is this vision buried in the daily lives of those who are the faithful-waiting. We await that time when our Lord comes in all his glory and restores the creation to its original unity in him. Then God will dwell in us even as we dwell in him, and God and the Lamb will be the everlasting temple.

Jesus Christ is the supreme gift and word of God to man. He is the beginning and the end. In him the timeless love of God is disclosed in terms of the created order in which a human life unfolds. The events of his life are more than historical facts, they are mysteries of revelation, permanent possessions of mankind. Within the conditions of time and space the Church renews year by year her remembrance of these mysteries, entering thereby into the life of God Himself through Jesus Christ who is the door.*

* (George Appleton, ed., The Oxford Book of Prayer, (New York, Oxford University Press, 1985, p. 609)

... the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, which shines brighter and brighter until full day. (Proverbs 4:18)