It was, as Paul says, “the mystery that was kept secret for long ages.” But through the coming of Christ, it “has now been disclosed and through the prophetic writings has been made known to all nations, according to the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith.”
A mystery—a genuine mystery, “ a truth,” says N.T. Wright, “whose parallel lines disappear behind God’s dark curtain, to meet in that infinity of truth where all is literal and all is metaphorical.”
Was it ever really God’s intention, was it ever really part of his perfect plan, for Israel to have a king? Consider God’s response to Israel’s request for a king in 1 Samuel 8:10-18.
So Samuel told all the words of the Lord to the people who were asking for a king from him. He said, "These will be the ways of the king who will reign over you: he will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen and to run before his chariots. And he will appoint for himself commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and some to plow his ground and to reap his harvest, and to make his implements of war and the equipment of his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his servants. He will take the tenth of your grain and of your vineyards and give it to his officers and to his servants. He will take your male servants and female servants and the best of your young men and your donkeys, and put them to his work. He will take the tenth of your flocks, and you shall be his slaves. And in that day you will cry out because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves, but the Lord will not answer you in that day."What about a temple? Was it really God’s intention for Israel to have one? Consider again what God instructed Nathan to tell David in today's Old Testament reading.
Now, therefore, thus you shall say to my servant David, 'Thus says the Lord of hosts, I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep, that you should be prince over my people Israel. And I have been with you wherever you went and have cut off all your enemies from before you. And I will make for you a great name, like the name of the great ones of the earth. And I will appoint a place for my people Israel and will plant them, so that they may dwell in their own place and be disturbed no more. And violent men shall afflict them no more, as formerly, from the time that I appointed judges over my people Israel. And I will give you rest from all your enemies. Moreover, the Lord declares to you that the Lord will make you a house. When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. When he commits iniquity, I will discipline him with the rod of men, with the stripes of the sons of men, but my steadfast love will not depart from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away from before you. And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me. Your throne shall be established forever.'"The underlying truth, so often missed in our all too cursory reading of the Old Testament, is that both king and temple are merely concessions on God’s part to Israel’s petulant desire to be like everyone else. “Give us a king like all the other nations. Give us a temple like the ones down the road.”
Ultimately, king and temple are not the solution. They are part of the problem. Although chosen by God to be a light to the nations, Israel was trying to borrow light from the nations—the kind of “light” that would lead them into darkness.
Kings become corrupt, and it didn’t take long for that to happen. Saul became arrogant and self-absorbed. David, for all his exploits, had a nasty habit of sleeping with other men’s wives. Solomon, for all his wisdom, was compromised by his overabundance of political marriages to foreign women. It just goes downhill from there.
Temples have a tendency to become ends in themselves. A religious elite grows up around them, leading to idolatry, abuse of the poor, and neglect of the weightier matters of the law.
It does seem, however, that without these things—king and temple—the history of Israel, as sad and tragic as it is, would be even more sad and tragic. It would be a story of unredeemed anarchy; of a people cut off from their God and a God forever distant from his people. That, above all else, would have been utterly contrary to God’s plan to redeem Israel and, through Israel, all the nations of the world. God’s desire is, and always has been, the relentless desire to be “Emmanuel,” God with us.
So, the true mystery, the true story of Israel begins to come into sharper focus. It is the story of the search for a king after God’s own heart; of the need for a temple that is somehow both movable and appropriate for the housing of the glory and majesty of God. David wanted to make God a house. God says to David, “I will make you a house. Your son will be called my Son. His reign on your throne will be established forever.”
David was talking about a temple for God that would rival his own house of cedar. God was talking about a King who would embody his glory. There is only one appropriate way for the eternal God to dwell in the midst of his people. A house of cedar would never be anything more than a temporary signpost. The real thing would come in the flesh; a human being bearing the image and likeness of God; a king embodying God’s perfect order, his new creation; a man after God’s own heart, whose heart would be broken by the sins of the world but who would, in that moment of heartbreak, render all man-made temples redundant and obsolete.
Make no mistake. Mary understood. She did not find favor with God because she was a pure and spotless virgin. Mary was a pure and spotless virgin because she found favor with God. For reasons known only to God, Mary was chosen before the foundation of the world to play this pivotal role in the unfolding of this great and holy mystery. From a very early age, we can surmise, Mary cultivated or, perhaps, was having cultivated within her a deep intimacy with God. In her was that favored place where God’s glory could find a home and be brought forth into the world through the birth of Jesus Christ. In Mary’s womb, king and temple came together once and for all. The Scriptures came to fulfillment in ways never imagined. God found his true home at long last. It wasn’t in the palace. It wasn’t in the temple. But it was in the Word made flesh.
Christ, by highest heaven adored; Christ the everlasting Lord, Late in time, behold him come, offspring of a virgin’s womb. Veiled in flesh, the Godhead see; hail the incarnate Deity, Pleased as man with men to dwell, Jesus, our Emmanuel.
In Jesus, offspring of a virgin’s womb, God revealed to all the world his unending love and his heart’s desire to be, always and forever, “Emmanuel,” God with us.
O holy child of Bethlehem, descend to us we pray. Cast out our sin and enter in; be born in us today. We hear the Christmas angels, their great glad tidings tell. O come to us, abide with us, our Lord Emmanuel.
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