The Wonder of His Love

In the first reading this morning, David wants to build God a house. As king, David has established his capital in Jerusalem and built himself a nice house. He imported all the materials. Cedar was brought in from Lebanon, built to last, the house was beautiful and impressive because no one else could afford one like his. A unique witness to his great power and wealth, his house was complete. And he proposes building a similar house for God. After all, all the kings were doing it. They built themselves and their gods mansions to tell the tale even from the outside of their prominence and to boast of their glory. David tells the prophet Nathan of his plans, and at first Nathan says, “Sure, sounds like a plan.” But then, God speaks to Nathan in a dream and instructs Nathan that David is not to build God a house. God hasn’t asked for it and doesn’t want it. Later, David’s son, Solomon, will be asked by God to build the first Temple in Jerusalem.

The lesson for us in this story is that God decides where God will make his home. We do not serve a “Field of Dreams” God…just because we build it; it doesn’t mean God will come. In fact, if we build it for God thinking that it will impress or show-off or that we will share in the glory, God isn’t going to move in. And in the fullness of time, God chooses to make his home in the womb of a young girl. Common and humble, she sings and her very soul is like a spotlight shining brightly, magnifying God’s greatness.

David offered to build God a house, and Mary agreed to welcome God home. Oliver Wendall Holmes, the American writer and poet of the 19th Century, perhaps described home best. “Where we love is home – home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts.”

This is the wonder of the story of the birth of Jesus. God loved the world so much that he made it home for not just his heart, but also his feet. And it is such a radical, amazing truth that we have, ever since, tried to explain it less wondrously. Do we fully understand it? How God would come to be human? How God would be born? How Jesus is the Son of God and also Emmanuel, God-with-us? No, we don’t. We are human, and we cannot comprehend God. But we can be overwhelmed by the wonder of a love that would cause God to be formed in the dark, water world of a womb, to stretch and kick in its confines, to open his lungs with air filled with the smell of a barn, and release a piercing cry in the night. Where we love is home, and God made his home here.

The late Rev. Bill Hinson used to tell about a Christmas when his daughter, Cathy, was a young girl. That Christmas, Cathy’s wish was for a puppy; and her wish came true in the form of a perky, little white puppy with a vigorously wagging tail. In fact, she named him “Happy” because she said he had “such a happy ending.” Bill was given the job of building Happy a house. But, when it was complete, Happy wanted no part of it. They picked him up, put him in, and he immediately ran out. They tried everything. Treats inside – he wasn’t going. Warnings, unheeded. Pleadings, unresponsive. Commands, threats – to no avail. Nothing worked. Happy the dog would not go into his doghouse.

It didn’t make sense, but Happy wanted nothing to do with his house. Finally, Bill gave up and went inside. When he walked by the kitchen window, he couldn’t believe his eyes in the backyard. He saw Happy, tail wagging, trot right into the doghouse. He couldn’t believe it. What made Happy not only go in, but want to go in? He’d been trying to introduce that dog to his house all day!

Bill went outside to find Happy serenely lying in his doghouse, nestled right next to Cathy. Love; where we love is home.

The only explanation for the birth of Jesus, the name that means God saves, is love. Love caused God to make earth his home – home that his feet would leave, but not his heart. And Mary rejoices in response, “My soul gives glory to the Lord. My spirit delights in God my Savior. For though I’m God’s humble servant, God has noticed me.”

Mary was common, faithful, and a humble, willing servant, and the mother of Jesus, the one who is God-with-us, the one who saves us. Mary heard his borning cry as he entered the world and his cries of suffering as he hung on the cross. Mary, who said “Here I am, the servant of the Lord” and pondered the words of the angel in her heart, asked Jesus to turn water into wine at a wedding in Cana, came with his brothers to call him home when the controversy began to stir, and stayed with him at the foot of his cross.

Summer before last, Chris and I took a group to visit the churches of Paul. And we traveled to Ephesus. It was a Sunday, so we went beyond the usual exit from the ruins of the city of Ephesus to the ruins of the Church of Mary where the group was to take Communion. As we arrived, we read the sign that said that this was the Church of Mary, where the third ecumenical Council took place in 431 AD. In the early church, as Christianity spread and time passed, the leaders of the church gathered whenever a major controversy arose. The first council took place in 325 at Nicea, and from it came the Nicene Creed that we frequently use as our Affirmation of Faith in worship.

The first council addressed the heretical teaching of Arius that Jesus the Son was inferior to God the Father. The second council in 385 addressed teaching that said the Holy Spirit was not equal to the Father and the Son. And the third council in 431 at Ephesus addressed the heretical teaching of Nestorius that Jesus was really only human when Mary gave birth to him.

The longer it had been since Jesus died, the harder it was to believe. As with every revolution, the most radical the movement was, was at the outset. And then, it began to conform to the culture – maybe men and women, slaves and masters, Jew and Gentile weren’t really completely equal, not really seen as one in the sight of God, maybe Jesus was a messenger, a prophet, even a messiah, but not equal to God the Father. It happens over and over again throughout history; the hardest things to hear get softened. The most demanding commandments get weakened.

And often, the wonder has to be defended. And that is what happened at the third ecumenical council at Ephesus. As I stood there, I touched the bricks, here, in this place, the wonder of Christmas was affirmed. The reason for joy was upheld. In theological terms, Mary was not just Christokos, the bearer of an anointed one, she was Theotokos, the bearer of God. With ten tiny fingers, ten tiny toes, and a belly button, love came down and God was born among us.

And, as amazing as it is, the truth is that in the “same way the body of Jesus was being formed
in the womb of Mary, the life of the living Christ can be formed within each of us.” (James Harnish)

Rev. Dr. Robert Mulholland is an author, a professor emeritus of New Testament at Asbury Seminary and consulting editor of The Journal of Spiritual Formation. He writes that “Every Christian is called to be a Mary. We are called to offer ourselves to God in such a radical abandonment and availability that the Christ of God can be brought forth through our lives into the world.”

Paul wrote to the church at Colossae a message that is as true today as it was in the first Century. He writes that, “There’s a lot of suffering to be entered into in this world—the kind of suffering Christ takes on. I welcome the chance to take my share. This mystery has been kept in the dark for a long time, but now it’s out in the open. God wanted everyone, not just Jews, to know this rich and glorious secret inside and out, regardless of their background, regardless of their religious standing. The mystery in a nutshell is just this: Christ is in you, so therefore you can look forward to sharing in God’s glory.”

Christ is in you. God makes his home in you. Because where we love is home – home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts. The wonder of Christmas is that Christ makes his home in us, and even though his feet have left, his heart has not. Just as Mary bore God and brought his feet into the world, we now bear God and bring his heart into the world. For now we are his feet, and we bear his heart as we enter into the dark, smelly places of this word. We bear his heart as we love the most humble among us. We bear his heart as we share the love of God. Let us prepare him room.