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12/21/2008
Readings2 Samuel 7:1-5, 8b-12, 14a, 16
Romans 16:25-27
Luke 1:26-38
In the garden of Eden, Adam and Eve lived freely in paradise, open to all of creation around them. After the fall, however, man began to dwell in houses. Whether made of brick or stone or wood, a house is more than a shelter from the elements, it is a place of physical and even spiritual sanctuary from the world outside. Protecting from the pain and hurt that can come from others, it can also become an isolation from the world. It is man’s feeble attempt to recreate the security of paradise.
David wished to build a house in which the Lord would dwell and the family of Israel could visit Him. David’s own palace was magnificent, while the ark of the Lord dwelt in a simple tent. To David, this was unacceptable – the Lord deserved a dwelling more magnificent than any other. On the surface, this desire appears laudable. But the Lord, through Nathan the prophet, reproved David and reminded him that He could not be confined to a single dwelling – there was to be no barrier between Him and all the nations of the world. All the other national gods in David’s time were constricted to their countries and their temples. They had no power outside of certain boundaries. David’s God, however, was not only the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but the God of all the universe as well. As Genesis proclaims, He created everything out of nothing, and everything, and everyone, belongs to Him. He was Israel’s God in a special way, but He was to work through Israel to save all His creation, which would occur through the son of David, Jesus Christ. This is the joyous announcement that the angel Gabriel gave to Mary: “He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end” (Luke 1:32-33).
Although God eventually allowed Solomon to build a temple to the Lord as an accommodation to the people’s weakness, He never was to be confined to it. The destruction of the first Temple and Israel’s exile to foreign lands was a sign to the prophets that God’s salvation was to extend to other nations, and the destruction of the second Temple in 70 A.D. was a definitive sign of the establishment of the universal Temple, Jesus Christ. St. Stephen was one of the first to see clearly the universal call of God’s salvation:
David…found favor in the sight of God and asked that he might find a dwelling place for the house of Jacob. But Solomon built a house for him. Yet the Most High does not dwell in houses made by human hands. As the prophet says: ’The heavens are my throne, the earth is my footstool. What kind of house can you build for me? says the Lord, or what is to be my resting place? Did not my hand make all these things?’ (Acts 7:46-50).
Ironically, it was one of Stephen’s persecutors, Saul of Tarsus, who was to be the instrument used by God to extend His salvation beyond the House of Israel to all the nations of the world. As he writes to the Christians living in Rome, the new center of God’s universal family: “Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery kept secret for long ages [is] now manifested through the prophetic writings and, according to the command of the eternal God, made known to all nations to bring about the obedience of faith” (Romans 16:25-26).
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