December 18, 2011

4th Sunday of Advent
2 Samuel 7:1-11;16
Luke 1:26-38

Message series: Advent
Sunday’s message: A house for David

I’m back in the pulpit on Sunday after a weekend off to move my mom from Fort Lauderdale.

This week’s readings focus on David, who was remembered as the greatest of the kings of God’s people.

In the first reading David is “settled in his palace” and at rest. He notices that, while he himself now lives in a palace made of sweet-smelling cedar, God’s “chest” – a symbol of God’s very presence – is still housed in a tent.

Not just any tent, mind you. That “tent” would be the Tabernacle, the wonderful portable worship place that God’s people used for all of their journey through the wilderness and beyond. It may be a bit tattered and smell not so nice in David’s day, but that tent is no small thing.

David wants to do for God what God has apparently done for him: create some nice digs. David tells the prophet Nathan of his plan. Nathan says “the LORD is with you”. The LORD has always been with David; it’s a hallmark of the David stories in the Old Testament. What could go wrong with this?

But Nathan doesn’t sleep well on this plan of David’s. It turns out that the old tent will do very nicely for now, thank you very much. The LORD speaks:

I haven't lived in a temple from the day I brought Israel out of Egypt until now. Instead, I have been traveling around in a tent and in a dwelling. Throughout my traveling around with the Israelites, did I ever ask any of Israel's tribal leaders I appointed to shepherd my people: Why haven't you built me a cedar temple?

Instead of David building a house for the LORD, the LORD proposes building a “house” for David – a dynasty: “Your dynasty and your kingdom will be secured forever before me. Your throne will be established forever.”

It’s interesting that all of that is in our Bibles, because in fact it didn’t happen that way. David’s dynasty in Jerusalem came to a violent end with the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians in 586 BCE.

Probably we have all that in our Bibles because after the disaster of 586 the promise to David began to be understood in a different way. God would intervene for God’s people with a very special son of David, an Anointed One – a Messiah.

Which brings us to our familiar story from Luke. Notice something in this story you may not have noticed before: the angel Gabriel speaks with Mary about how her son will “be great and he will be called the Son of the Most High.” Gabriel tells her how “the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father” and how “he will rule over Jacob's house forever, and there will be no end to his kingdom." Lots there to connect the story to David. Except that Mary is not from the line of David. Joseph is. Luke tells us so.

What’s going on? It is clear that even though Luke sees Jesus’ birth as the result of a special creation in the waters of Mary’s womb – a creation not unlike the first one – Joseph, Mary’s fiancé, will be important to the story. Jesus will be son of David because Joseph will adopt him as his son. Matthew’s story is more explicit about Joseph’s role, but it’s not absent from Luke’s story.

Beyond all expectation God will build David a “house”, a dynasty. Beyond all expectation God will create Jesus in Mary’s womb. What might God do next, in our own lives? "Nothing is impossible for God."

Our sanctuary is filled with angels at this time of the year. (See if you can spot all eight of them on Sunday morning.) The angels are all around us. What is it that they have to say to us as Christmas approaches? What new thing will they announce that God is about to do now?