Dec. 24: 4th Sunday of Advent

Theotokos, God-bearer

2 Sm 7:1-5, 8-12, 14, 16; Ps 89:2-3, 4-5, 27, 29; Rom 16:25-27; Lk 1:26-38

This year Advent is as brief as it can be. Here we are at the fourth and final Sunday and at Christmas Eve. The readings could not be more beautiful or apt. 
The opening reading from the Second Book of Samuel describes the moment when King David is moved to build a temple for the Lord in Jerusalem, the new capital. David muses that he is living in a palace, “a house of cedar,” while the ark of God dwells in a tent. 

The ark, we recall, was that portable sanctuary where God’s presence was most intense and which had accompanied Israel during its long desert trek to the promised land. Through the words of the prophet, the Lord reminds David that, despite the king’s benevolent intentions, God does not need a “house.”

It was the Lord who called David from his care of the sheep to make him king and has been with him ever since: “I have been with you wherever you went.” It is not David who is doing God any favors but God himself “will establish a house for you” and insure the endurance of his dynasty: “Your house and your kingdom shall endure forever before me; your throne shall stand firm forever.”

There is no doubt Israel took great pride in the temple. The modest building started by David would be greatly enhanced by his son, Solomon. Over the centuries, the fate of the temple would rise and fall, as Israel was attacked by powerful enemies.  

The most magnificent version of the temple was built by King Herod during Jesus’ lifetime. Nevertheless, there was always an underlying sense in the Scriptures that no matter how awesome the temple and its worship, God’s loving presence did not depend on stone and wood but within the faithful response of Israel to God’s commands.

That motif sets the stage for the Gospel account of the Annunciation to Mary. In the ancient grotto of the Annunciation in Nazareth, the words are inscribed in Latin: “Here the Word became flesh.” 

The scene Luke describes picks up the thread of the first reading about the everlasting Davidic dynasty. David’s house will endure forever, not because of a magnificent building (in fact, the Jerusalem temple was tragically destroyed in the revolt against Rome in A.D. 70), but in the very body and spirit of this young woman of Nazareth. 

“The child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God.” Here is the astounding assertion at the heart of Christian faith — the almighty and transcendent God, creator of the universe, author of all life, becomes human in the person of Jesus Christ. Mary is the point of fusion between the divine and the human. Without her, Jesus of Nazareth would not be part of human history.

In the early centuries, as Christians were trying to grasp this mystery in a deeper way, the Council of Ephesus in A.D.  431 declared Mary to be the theotokos, the Greek term that literally means the “God-bearer” or “Mother of God.” From a logical point of view this is an impossible assertion — how can God have a mother? But the entire mystery of the incarnation defies logic — the divine fused to the human in the person of Jesus Christ.  

The body of Mary becomes the new Ark of the Covenant, the new temple of God. Paul the apostle drew from faith in the incarnate Jesus that through baptism and faith, every Christian is in fact a temple: “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been purchased at a price. Therefore glorify God in your body” (1 Cor 6:19-20).

Here is the basis for the Christian belief in the sacredness of all human life, from the moment of conception to the final entry into God’s presence. Here is the reason why we celebrate the feast of Christmas, the moment the Word-made-flesh dwells among us.