Where Does Jesus Live?
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Many of you here today may remember my daughter Chloe, who was head chorister here at St. Paul’s about 5 or 6 years back. When Chloe was a very little girl—maybe 3 or 4—she asked me one day if Jesus lived at church. She thought that there was a special room for him at our parish in Trumbull with a special bed and his own kitchen and his own bathtub and his own TV set. I bet many of us here have heard this question from other little children, too. In retrospect that’s a very logical question from a child … it’s easy to see how a little kid could think that Jesus lives at church.
Our readings today / play with this question. They ask, where does Jesus live? Where does God live? Where does God want to live? So maybe the question isn’t only for Preschoolers after all. The question is a good one for everyone to ask. And it’s especially appropriate as we come together to worship God on the day after Kristin was ordained to the priesthood.
For, in a very special way, Kristin has been set apart in order to house the Christ for all the rest of us to see. She is an icon of the priesthood of all believers—someone for us to gaze upon and see the power of God at work. She is someone to give us hope that the power and the presence of God reside within each of us, too. She is to be a reminder for us that God is with us all the time, even when things may be very bleak.
This idea of where God lives is the reason for the apparently odd selection of our first reading. It was chosen by the people who made the lectionary to be an interesting partner for the gospel of the Annunciation to Mary.
We see King David, in the early years of his reign, asking the prophet Nathan to go to God for him. He wants to know if it’s a good idea to build a permanent Temple in Jerusalem to house the symbol of God’s presence. And eventually God makes it clear that God is happy enough with a portable tent, a holdover from the days of the Exodus from Egypt. So David does not build a Temple. That is for his son Solomon to accomplish.
Now, what is this “ark of God” mentioned in the third and fourth lines of the reading? It’s the Ark of the Covenant, the place where God’s presence specifically resided. It was a special gold-encrusted chest built by master craftsmen during the wandering of Israel in the desert. God gave the building plans for the ark, through Moses.
The Ark was a chest—it was about as big as what we’d know as a hope chest. And on the top, at either end, were figures of cherubim, angels, and their wings curved back around toward the center of the ark. But there was a space above the Ark’s center. It appeared empty. But that is where the Spirit of God resided, and where the power of the Most High overshadowed the chest.
It was the physical locus of God’s presence in Israel. It was called the Mercy Seat.
What, might we ask, was inside that Ark? Tradition tells us that it contained 3 items: the tablets of the Ten Commandments; the rod of Aaron, the brother of Moses; and a jar of manna, gathered up from the desert floor during the Exodus. The tablets symbolized the Word of God, ever living, ever active. The rod of Aaron, by which he defeated the magicians of Egypt, was evergreen and always in flower. That symbolized the power of God and the renewing freshness of God’s work. The manna spoke of God’s loving nurture of his people.
We don’t know what ever happened to the Ark. It was lost in the Babylonian invasion of Jerusalem around 580 BC. It’s still lost, maybe packed in some
government warehouse somewhere…
But that Ark was the sign of God’s covenant—God’s promises to the people—to be their God and to make them as numerous as the stars in the sky. It was their symbol that God saved them and brought them through numerous trials, through God’s mercy.
And now let’s fast forward to somewhere around the year 4 BC. We have the story in our gospel of a virgin, Mary of Nazareth, who is surprised by the visit of an angel of God. The angel announces that she will conceive in her womb a son, who will be holy. He will be called Son of God. He is God. Mary is given the opportunity to be the Mother of her Maker. And she acquiesces, “Let it be with me according to your word.”
Now, the Christian tradition has had a lot of fun playing with the idea of Mary as bearer of the Christ. She contains within herself the Word of God, as Jesus grows within. She contains within herself the power and the refreshing hope of God, as Jesus grows within. She contains within herself the loving provision of God, the Word made flesh, whom people will be offered as heavenly manna, the bread of heaven and the cup of salvation. She carries within her all the aspects of the first Ark: the Word, the power, the hope, the beneficent providence.
* * *
Is it any wonder that the Christian tradition has sometimes labeled Mary as the Ark of the New Covenant? That’s a most appropriate title, actually, as she bears within her the sign of God’s New Covenant, new promises, gestated and incarnated in Jesus.
So in our first reading we heard about God’s house, the Ark of the Covenant. In our gospel we heard about the womb of the Virgin, set aside to be the new Ark as the Word takes flesh and comes among us.
* * *
And in our Collect we see how this question of the house for God links to us today. We too are called, like Mary, to provide a house—a home—for Jesus. The gates of our inner houses swing open at our baptisms.
All through Advent we’ve heard the prophetic command that we prepare him a home. Today’s collect goes so far as to suggest a mansion. That makes sense, doesn’t it, as a mighty king deserves to live in a mansion. And in this life we are able to provide him a mansion, even as in the next life he promises to provide us one. Remember his statement in John’s gospel: “in my father’s house are many mansions…I go and prepare a place for you.” [Jn 14:2, 3]
* * *
So how do we continue to prepare our inner house—our inner mansion—for Jesus? The essential and never-ending spiritual disciplines of prayer and worship are excellent first steps. The housecleaning and renovation work can expand as we throw in some meditation and some spiritual reading. Quiet helps an awful lot as we can give him some space in the noise of our lives to get through to us. Fasting, generosity, forgiveness and reconciliation with those who have hurt us—all these spiritual disciplines help us prepare our mansions for him to enter in.
Kristin, as priest of the church, is called to model some of these good things for us. She’s called to be transparent enough in her life of faith that she can mediate the Word—so she can be a text for us to read and from which we might learn.
I hope we can help her in this awesome responsibility by encouraging her to take care of herself well. The life of a priest—and the life of each one of us here—is filled with weight and obligation. So please encourage Kristin, and Paul, and Judy, to take some time away, to observe their own day of Sabbath each week, to sit in quiet, so that they can make room for the life of God to grow within themselves and so that they have room and time to practice essential spiritual disciplines.
And may each of us do the same for ourselves. Carve out time to be quiet and to be receptive to God’s Spirit as Mary was. Practice prayer, and worship, and generosity, and forgiveness. May we each clean out our houses and contract for some interior renovations, so that Jesus can feel really welcome.
Where does Jesus live? He lives right here.
Amen.
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