Tomorrow is Christmas. Earth shaking revelation on my part. I know. But, seriously, it is one of the two biggest days of the year, along with Easter Sunday. So, I open up usccb.org to look at today’s readings and I see this passage from second Samuel. It seems to have absolutely no relationship to the birth of Our Lord. In the passage, King David tells Nathan, the prophet, that he wants to build God a great house so that the Lord no longer has to live in a tent. After all, David lives in a palace of Cedar. Why should God basically go homeless. Nathan thinks, great idea. Knock your socks off and move ahead with your plans.
But then Nathan hears from God. No dice. He instructs the prophet to go back to David and tell Him that he is not to proceed with his plans. After all, God has done just fine for Himself up to this point and has not asked anyone to build Him anything. It was He, not David, who accomplished greatness by David and Israel. Basically, God was telling David that he was acting too big for his britches. Putting Himself before God.
What was so bad, really though, for David to want to glorify God with a magnificent home? Someplace for him to show God, the Creator, off to the world? A place for the Israelites to go to worship the Lord who led them out of Egypt to freedom? After all, they have been carrying Him around as the ark of the covenant in a tent across the desert for decades.
Then, I thought of this verse from 2 Kings, chapter 5. It involved Naaman, an army commander from Aram. Present day Syria. Naaman developed leprosy and was told to go to Elisha, the Samarian prophet who would cure his illness. After some back and forth about how Elisha cured him, Naaman requests to take 2 mule loads of earth back to Aram so that he could worship the true Lord. He believed he had to have ground from this holy place to properly worship.
And now we come to Christmas, and Jesus’ nickname. Emmanuel. “God with us.” We know that the birth of Christ was the Word made flesh. How the Lord walked among His people until His death resurrection and ascension. He walked AMONG us. Or should I say He WALKS among us? We don’t have to travel to some distant temple or city to worship and have a relationship with God. David was essentially saying to God that he wanted to put the Lord in a box. So that he, and the rest of God’s people, could go about their lives as they saw fit and, when necessary, could “visit” God in the home David built for him. What some might deem a self-imposed separation of church and state. Not what God intended for His people. It is what He eventually allowed them to do when he let Solomon build the temple and then have it rebuilt after the return from Babylon. But it is not what God intended. Just as He never intended for divorce but allowed it, until Jesus set them straight, for the spiritually immature Israelites as they wandered in the desert.
Wait, you say, isn’t Christ in the tabernacle? Don’t we pay reverence and homage whenever we walk past the box that houses God in our churches? Yes, we house consecrated hosts, the body of Christ in the tabernacles of our churches. And we require marriages in those churches. And baptisms. And confirmations. And ministries serving the poor. And have religious education studies. And parties celebrating life events. All the things that make our churches, our communities.
But what do we do when we receive Christ in the eucharist? We take Him with us. We leave our churches as one Church. One mobile Church that brings God to the world…literally. The word “Mass” (missa) itself means “To send”. We no longer have to bring the world to God. We worship where we live. Where we work. Where we play. We do not need two mule loads of earth. We just need a heart not made of stone and a willingness to humbly approach God and ask Him to be one with us. Our parents did it for us in baptism and we have the opportunity to do it ourselves at every Mass.
So enjoy time with family and friends tomorrow. But don’t forget. Emmanuel. God is ALWAYS with us. Merry Christmas to you all.
