First Reading: 2 Samuel 7:1-5, 8b-12, 14a, 16
Responsorial: Psalm 89:2-3, 4-5, 27, 29
Second Reading: Romans 16:25-27
Gospel: Luke 1:26-28

The House of David
by Bishop Richard Henning

Last Sunday gave us a quickening sense of anticipation as the liturgy urged us to remember God’s faithfulness and rejoice. With this Fourth Sunday of Advent, our gaze turns to the events of the great feast of Christmas and the memory of ancient prophecies and surprising newness.
 
The Acts of the Apostles provides samples of the preaching of the early Christian community. Those samples clearly indicate that those first Christians asserted Jesus’ Davidic credentials and highly valued those credentials. In the claim that Jesus was a descendant of David, Christians perceived an important link between the ancient prophecies to Israel, its dearest hopes, and the events of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection.
 
The First Reading, taken from the Second Book of Samuel recounts a vision of the prophet Nathan concerning King David’s desire to build a proper dwelling place for the Lord. Until this point, the Ark of the Covenant was housed in a tent in the midst of the people. David wishes to build a permanent, fixed, and worthy house. In Nathan’s vision, the response of the Lord answers David obliquely: the Lord is hardly in need of David’s efforts. It has been the Lord all along who has raised David up and provided for Israel. The message goes on to assert the intention of the Lord to establish a different kind of house- the Davidic line which will share a special relationship with the Lord and endure forever. While this passage fundamentally asserts God’s transcendence, it also suggests something surprising. The Lord does not require human beings to raise up wood, stone, and gold in tribute. The Lord’s true dwelling place will not be a mere building, but in human hearts- a house of flesh.
 
This passage from Second Samuel helped provide the foundation for Davidic expectations in Jesus’ own day. The Davidic Monarchy had succumbed centuries before, but the Jewish people fervently hoped for the restoration of the line of David. However, the varied expressions of those hopes never envisioned all that Christians would come to understand and proclaim about our Davidic Messiah, Jesus.
 
The gospel passage from Luke tells the familiar story of the annunciation. This uniquely Lukan passage holds a special place in the history of Christian art and imagination. It is one of the most often painted scenes from the New Testament. We are endlessly fascinated with the surprise and the drama of it. It speaks of the Davidic hopes of Israel, but this is no restoration of the monarchy as it existed in David’s day. Here the angel announces the fulfillment of hopes in the unlikeliest of places- in poor and marginal Galilee and to an unknown maid. On her rests the hopes of all and for all time- for this Davidic successor is no less than the Son of God. As the prophecy of Samuel hinted, God now chooses to make his dwelling in a house of human flesh. This strange and shocking desire of God goes beyond the limits of human expectations and introduces something truly new and wonderful into the human story.
 
Therein lies the drama of this momentous moment- so much has been offered in such an unexpected way- yet the world must await the response of just one soul. In this case, that one soul had a heart large enough to welcome even the power of the Most High. If the first surprise was God’s desire to make a dwelling in human flesh, the second surprise is that one of us proved worthy of God’s plan. Mary’s humble and open response to the Lord is such an essential ingredient to the feast we are about to celebrate.
 
At Christmas, we will recall and give thanks that God chooses to come among us as a human being. It is a choice which forever transforms the definition of human. With the birth of the Christ, the Son of God, there is an invitation for every human heart to become a dwelling place for the presence of the Living God. In this, Mary is our model and our teacher. She shows us the “obedience of faith” which Paul celebrates in the second reading. In her, the promises of the Lord find fulfillment. She is the “House of David” and the long awaited descendant of David makes his home in her, and among us, for all time.