Fourth Sunday of Advent 2017

2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16 (and Romans 16:25-27) and Luke 1:26-38

How do we think about the first Christmas? We tend to imagine it as a flying-by-the-seat-of-your-pants affair, with Joseph and Mary getting to Bethlehem at the last minute and scrabbling to find somewhere for her to give birth. But this idea could not be further from the truth. I put it to you that the birth of Jesus was the single most carefully planned event in human history.

The Gospels tell us that Mary was married to Joseph, and that Joseph was a descendant of king David. Now, king David’s descendants had long-since lost their throne. Jerusalem had been defeated by the Babylonians, the people taken into exile, and even after the return from exile the Davidic monarchy was not restored. By the time of Jesus’ birth, there was a new King of the Jews, Herod the Great, appointed by the Roman senate. Long-since displaced from Jerusalem, it would appear that at least some of those who claimed Davidic descent had ended up back in Bethlehem, the place David came from.

Joseph was a builder of houses by trade, and it appears that he was working in Nazareth, in Galilee, to the north. But, against a backdrop of Roman occupation, Joseph takes his bride to live in his hometown of Bethlehem, a town whose name means House of Bread. It was the cultural practice for a groom to add a room to his parents’ house and bring his bride there to start out their married life together; and so, it is the most likely expectation that Joseph and Mary were living with Joseph’s relatives at the time of Jesus’ birth.

Now, we have all heard that there was no room in the inn. There is a Greek word for a commercial inn, and Luke uses it in recounting Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan. And then there is a Greek word that means the guest room of a family home. Luke uses that word to describe the room where Jesus ate the Last Supper; and to describe the room that had no room at Jesus’ birth. In other words, Joseph and Mary were living in a house, but the room in which they were staying did not have enough room for Mary to give birth. Jesus is born in the main room of the house, at one end of which animals were kept at night, and put to bed in the animals’ manger.

Now, I want you to hold that in your mind as we turn back to our reading from the Old Testament. King David is settled in his own house, in Jerusalem, and decides that it is not right for him to live in a house while God still must make do with a tent, the tabernacle that had travelled with the people on their journey through the wilderness. David decides to build God a house; but, through the prophet Nathan, God declares that he does not want David to build him a house. Instead, God declares, he will build David a house: that is, establish David’s dynasty.

Have you noticed all this word-play going on? House as building, and house as family line, and the town known as the House of Bread, and the descendant of David who is a builder of houses?

God allowed David’s son Solomon to build him a house, the temple in Jerusalem. That house had been destroyed twice, and rebuilt twice. Indeed, the third temple was being built, by Herod the Great, at the time of Jesus’ birth. But God is not overly-invested in the rebuilding of his house, which will be destroyed a third time in 70AD. God is rebuilding David’s house. The son that Mary will bear, born in the home of some of David’s descendants, will restore the throne of David, whom God called his son (see, for example, Psalm 2).

Why is God more concerned about (re)building David’s house than having a house of his own? Because, in Jesus, God comes to restore humanity as those through whom his reign of justice, mercy, and righteousness is exercised in the world; and to overthrow his enemies, all that is opposed to such a good and free and harmoniously-ordered creation.

No, Jesus’ birth was not an exercise in chaos-management, but carefully constructed according to well-drawn plans. This Christmas, as we once again crowd into that room in Bethlehem to see the new-born king, let us do so confident in God’s amazing faithfulness and great goodness towards his covenant people. And let us say, with David and with Mary, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”