2 Samuel 7:4-17
Last year, a video of a large New Year’s Eve celebration in Paris went viral. With the Arc de Triomphe displaying the final countdown, the recording shows a sea of phones, everyone filming the moment rather than hugging or kissing their loved ones.
This is the world we live in. Most people have a strong impulse to record and share, building up their digital presentations of self and some sense of permeance. Yet, this instinct is not exactly something new. 2 Samuel 7:4-17 reminds me that the human desire to contain moments existed before modern technology, residing deep in our marrow.
Our reading for today shows God’s response to David’s desire to build the Almighty a temple, a permanent dwelling place. His offer is a sign of gratitude, a recognition of the holy — and an attempt to contain it.
While God eventually concedes to Israel’s desire for a Temple and equips David’s son Solomon to build one years later, the Creator’s response to David’s desire in 2 Samuel is to remind him that the Divine does not need a permanent dwelling place. Instead, the Lord’s place is amongst God’s people, “in a tent” or tabernacle (7:6). This is a reversal of the standard Ancient Near East relationship between Gods and their people. The “other Gods” were interested in temples. The Almighty wanted proximity and relationship.
This passage contains another notable reversal. David offers to build the Creator a house. In a play on words, the Lord refuses a physical abode and tells David that the Almighty will grant David a house, a royal dynasty that will last forever (v. 16). This biblical passage is known as the Davidic covenant, a gift from God to the people of Israel, a promise that the destructive cycle of sin-judgment-rescue repeated throughout human history (compare 7:10-16 with Judges 2:11-19) would finally end through David (Matthew 1:1, 17). God’s covenants (Genesis 15; Deuteronomy 27–28; even Romans 5–6) are all gifts initiated by God, not as a reward for work but as a firm commitment to establishing a relationship in which God has sought out.
As we read this passage in Advent, key themes may rise to the surface that are particularly relevant to this liturgical season. The largest one for me is that Jesus is the embodiment of God’s desire for proximity and relationship that we see in this passage. One could even argue that Mary’s pregnancy might be an extension of the Creator’s love of tabernacling amongst God’s people (compare Luke 1:32-33 with 2 Samuel 7:14,16).
Emmanuel, God with us, is the fulfillment of God’s covenant with David. The Christ child is the gift that destroys the destructive cycle of sin-judgement-rescue. Dwell in the goodness of this truth for a minute.
Yet, advent is also a time of lament, a time of waiting. We recognize the gift of Christ while also making space to hold the brokenness that is still woven into our world, the world God loves. God’s covenant with David has been fulfilled, but not yet fully realized.
This is where faith comes in. If we want to believe in Christ, we must have faith in the God we meet in our daily lives, the God Scriptures tell us about. This is a surrender of power. We admit that we are not in control and that God won’t always show up in the ways we want or respond how we expect the Almighty to. Sometimes, we will offer something or make a request, as David does in this passage, and God will say no, just to say yes to something we hadn’t even considered.
Believing in God is opening yourself up to being wrong in favor of living in a world that is more mystical, complex, and connected than we could ever conceptualize on our own.
Questions for discussion
- Have you heard God say to you, “I will not take my steadfast love from you”? How do you shape your life in response to this promise?
- Brainstorm ways that the church can be the church without a permanent structure. What are the dangers of assuming that we go to a building to meet God?
- When has a personal disappointment led to something good that you could never have imagined? Praise God for the disappointment.
- What are the central promises of the Davidic covenant? Which of these promises is most important to you?
Want to receive lectionary content in your inbox on Mondays? Sign up here.
