4th Sun Adv Year B, Dec 20, 2020; 2 Sm 7:1-5, 8b-12, 14a, 16; Rom 16:25-27; Lk 1:26-38
Until I was 5 years old, I lived in a 2-bedroom wooden house. From 6 years to 18 years old, I lived in a 3-bedroom brick house. When I was in the Army I lived in a barracks with about 50 other guys. In college, at LSU, I lived in a 2nd-floor apartment with 3 other guys. When I graduated I lived in a trailer for a while, then I lived in a shotgun house apartment that was half of a double.
When I moved to Florida I lived in another trailer for 4 years, then a 2-story townhouse apartment, and after that, I lived in one side of a 3-bedroom duplex. For six years I lived at Notre Dame Seminary in a small room just big enough for a bed and a desk. And after ordination, I have lived in 3 different rectories, at St. Andrew the Apostle, St. Ann, and here at Our Lady of Divine Providence.
Many of us have lived in a lot of different types of structures like I did, some good and some not so good. But did you ever think about where God might want to live? Did you ever consider - where could God live? If God is a spiritual being, vaster than the universe itself, where could God possibly live? What place could contain God? I never really thought about that but it boggles the mind.
But King David did think about that. We heard that in the first reading today. God had helped King David out of a lot of problems, close calls, and bad situations. So David wanted to do something for God. David wanted to build a house for God - a place where God could be with the people.
But God had a bigger plan in mind. Eventually, God let David’s son, King Solomon, build a great temple where the people could come to worship God and where they might feel God’s presence. However, that wasn’t exactly God’s final plan. God didn’t need a great big temple. It was nice for the people to have such a place, but what God wanted was something totally radical, something no one expected.
Today’s Gospel shows us how that idea took shape. God wanted to be with us in a special way. God wanted to be present to us - through his son Jesus. So, God prepared a special place for Jesus. It wasn’t a big temple or a cathedral, and it wasn’t made of Gold and Stained glass. It was the simplest place of all. It was the body of a young girl, the Virgin Mary.
That’s where Jesus lived - for about 9 months – so he could come into our world. Then Jesus lived with us: eating, drinking, laughing, teaching, crying, healing, and walking among us - as a man. Impossible as it sounds the God of the entire universe was somehow, in some unbelievable way, contained, but not limited or restricted, in the human flesh of Jesus Christ – the Son of God.
It makes my head hurt just trying to figure it out. It’s just too much. But that’s where faith comes in. We don’t have to know it all up here (in our heads) because we also know it in here (in our hearts). And the Holy Sprit helps us to remember it and gives us the courage and the strength to believe it.
But Jesus died over 2,000 years ago. So where does he live now? Where is his house? Heaven, sure, but not just there. Even heaven cannot contain Jesus. However, just as God allowed Mary to, in a miraculous way, contain Jesus in Mary’s body, God also allows us to contain Jesus within us too – in our very hearts, not the heart muscle but our spirit. Advent and our faith help us to prepare ourselves for Jesus to live in our hearts. And when Jesus returns, if we are prepared – then we get to live in Jesus’ heart too. I know. It boggles the mind.