TheoTrek — A Journey with God in Discipleship
Heavenly Dwelling
2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16; Psalm 89:1-4, 19-26; Luke 1:26-38; Romans 16:25-27
Rev. Chris Harbin, Central Baptist Church—Lowesville, VA
21 December 2008
Religion is interesting. We say that what matters is worshipping God, but we pay more attention to its symbols and forms than the God we claim to worship. Currently, much is said about the importance of doctrine, but each one has his own doctrine. We say that ritual forms are important for their meaning, but we are enslaved by their means. We claim to gather in celebration and worship of God present in a Bethlehem manger, but we do not allow God to be present in our lives. God wants to be present among us. Do we truly open our lives to be God’s dwelling, or do we simply repeat the phrase as one more religious formula? How do we recover the true meaning of Christmas?
David lived in a time with different religious rituals. We might like to think that religion, ritual, and worship were much more fluid in his day. After all, there was no Temple; there were no pews or hymnal racks; there were no worship bulletins, pianos, organs, or worship houses every three miles down the road. Denominational missions sending agencies had not been created. There was no seminary or publishing house—not even a conference center or Sunday School quarterlies. God’s house of worship was a tent whose resting place would move with the times.
There were plenty of established patterns in worship, however. The Mosaic code defined how sacrifice was to be performed, which animals were acceptable for what kinds of offerings, that there were to be no idols or images used in worship, and a host of patterns to keep the people and worship from being ritually polluted. They may not have had the formal codes of worship as we find them in our Pentateuch, but they had at least some oral version of the same.
David knew as well as the next Israelite that there were all sorts of regulations on worship, but he also had some sense that worship went beyond regulation and ritual. Worship was at heart about serving God, not about gathering for a prescribed set of rituals. While David was enmeshed in his traditions of worship, he was also looking for new patterns and forms of serving God. Building God a special place of earthly dwelling was high on his list of priorities.
We might call David an innovator moving beyond tradition. For decades and centuries, Yahweh had not had any temple. Yahweh’s only dwelling structure had been the Tabernacle created under Moses’ leadership—a big tent that had moved with the people as they traveled throughout the wilderness between Egypt and the land of God’s promise to Abraham. Oh, there was plenty of ritual and symbolism associated with the Tabernacle. It came, however, from a different period of life among the chosen people. It spoke of their identity as a semi-nomadic band living in tents. As they traveled, they carried the tent of God’s presence around with them. God was in their midst in a much more direct way, as God pitched tent alongside the rest of the nation in their wandering.
As they sought sanctuary, water, and pasture for their flocks, God traveled with them. As they found new places to pitch their tents, the tent of Yahweh’s presence came with them. The tabernacle was a visible reminder of God’s presence. Yahweh’s tent of meeting was always there to remind them whose they were and who they served. As they entered the Promised Land, however, that nearby symbol of the constant presence of Yahweh became distant for too many. They settled in towns scattered across the land and no longer saw God moving among them, breaking and making camp alongside them in their questing for camp and pasture.
David responded to the change in Israel’s life, arguing for a permanent dwelling for Yahweh that would reflect the times. He saw how life had changed in Israel and argued for a permanent building for God’s residence that reflected the people’s transition from nomadic herding to settled land-owners. There had been a point in God’s dwelling in a tent, but as the nation had given up tents for houses, Yahweh was not to be forgotten.
David questioned how a people could serve and worship God, while relegating God’s dwelling to a lesser standard than what they had adopted for themselves. He wanted to do something about it. He proposed the building of a permanent for Yahweh. God had other plans.
There was nothing wrong with David’s attitude and desire. David recognized that serving and worshipping God included making God foremost in one’s life. He sensed the disconnect between God dwelling in a tent while the people lived in houses of brick, mortar, cedar, and stone. He felt the inconsistency of words and practice that did not seem to place God at the center of life. He wanted to do more from a standpoint of the structures of worship and the messages they displayed before all. While there was nothing wrong with this, God wanted something greater than what David was seeking. God wanted a different kind of dwelling altogether.
The building was not so important to God. While David looked at the external structure of Tabernacle worship, God was looking inward to David’s heart, desire, and dedication. This was the dwelling place God was really interested in finding and inhabiting. The Tabernacle was a symbol that proudly declared, "God is with us!" God found the same message emblazoned on David’s heart and life. This was the dwelling Yahweh was seeking. He did not care so much for a Temple made with human hands, but to reside within those whose lives proclaimed aloud the message of God’s abiding presence.
This was why God chose to mark his presence in David’s life and line. It was why God came to Mary in an humble Bethlehem birth some 2000 years ago. The dwelling of God’s choice was within a human being. The gospel of John says that in Jesus, God took on human flesh, pitching his tent among us to make us aware of God’s presence. That is still God’s will today. God desires to live among us, not simply in structures made by the labor of human hands, but within the walls of our very lives. God comes in Christmas, not simply to be near us, but to live within us. Paul states that the purpose of God’s coming and revelation is to change us from the inside out, bringing us into the obedience of faith. That is where true worship begins.
It is, after all, not with walls, rituals, rites, ceremonies, and traditions that God is concerned. God appreciated David’s desire to build a Temple. What God was most concerned with was the Temple David had already built—his life placed at God’s command and dedicated to fulfill God’s will. This is true worship. It is not the trappings of religious observance, but the building of a life emblazoned with God’s presence and action.
How will we celebrate this Christmas? Many speak of keeping Christ in Christmas. As a friend recently mentioned, it is time we worried more about putting mass—worship—back in Christmas. That is what is too often missing from Christmas—worship that makes a heavenly dwelling for God within our lives. After all, making God present is the only fitting tribute of true worship that God really desires. Will we build God a temple this Christmas? It is in our lives God wishes to dwell.
—©2008 Christopher B. Harbin