It might seem a little strange that we have the Old
Testament reading that we do for Christmas Day.
What does the tabernacle have to do with Christ’s birth? The link between Christmas and the tabernacle
might not be as clear as it otherwise could be because of the way one of the
verses of our Gospel reading is translated.
At the end of our Gospel reading it says, “And the Word became flesh
and dwelt among us…” A more literal
translation of the Greek would read: “And the Word became flesh and tabernacled
among us.” St. John is linking
together the birth of Christ with the tabernacle that God instituted at Mt.
Sinai. In order that we might learn
something of the significance of Christ’s birth, I’d like to look at this
connection between the tabernacle and Christ and what it means for us still
today.
The tabernacle was not Moses’s idea, nor was it the idea of
any man. God gave Moses the instructions
for the tabernacle while he was atop Mt. Sinai.
You can read this for yourself in Exodus chapters 25-31. The substance of what is going on with the
tabernacle is that this is the way that the people of Israel were blessed with
God’s own presence in their midst. This
is what made the people of Israel different from all the other nations on
earth. All the other nations worshipped
idols, believing that they would be blessed by their own arts and
practices. The Israelites had the one
true God living together with them with the Ark of the Covenant and the
tabernacle. Wherever God went the people
followed. Wherever God went the people
conquered and prospered. So long as the
Israelites had God and God was gracious to them, there was nothing that they
had to fear.
It is wonderful that God chose this ragtag nation of
shepherds and lived together with them in this tent with his gracious
presence. It is even more wonderful that
God chose the Virgin Mary as the mother of the man in whom the fullness of God
dwells bodily, as St. Paul puts it in Colossians. Choosing someone’s tent to live in is one
thing, or as it was later with the temple: choosing someone’s house to live in
is one thing. But what does it mean that
God takes up our very human nature to live in?
If you choose to live in someone’s tent or house you are wanting to be
on quite intimate terms with them. But
these are things outside of us.
With Christ God has decided to live together with us in the
most intimate way possible. We frankly
are joined together. He took on the
fullness of our human nature. He did not
even just take on our body, but also our minds and our souls. The incarnation of the Son of God was not in
such a way where he just came to inhabit the body, and use the body like a
puppet, and the mind and soul were the mind and soul of God that controlled the
body like a puppeteer. Jesus is true man
totally and completely, even as he is true God.
Jesus was a true baby. He needed
to have his diaper changed and he suckled at Mary’s breast. As a baby he was helpless and in need of care
from his mother Mary and stepfather Joseph. As true God he ruled over all things.
This is a great mystery that we cannot get to the bottom
of. It is similar to the mystery of how
Jesus died on the cross even though he is true God as well as true Man, and so
how is it that God could die? Shouldn’t
God dying be impossible? Wouldn’t
everything have fallen apart at his death?
But then again, how can a man, once he has died and been dead and turned
cold and hard, be resurrected from the dead?
These are things to wonder about, not to answer. It is one thing for a Christian to wonder
about these things and say, “How can these things be?” as he or she thinks
about the story of salvation—the marvelous lengths that God goes to in order to
rescue us. It is altogether a different
thing when an unbeliever scoffs and mocks the idea of Jesus being true God and
true Man in one person.
It seems to me that all three of the great festivals of the
Christian Church Year—Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost—are well spent when we
wonder about the great things that God has done in them that surpass our
understanding. Joyous faith is happy to
learn more about the ways and means of God.
And so it is not a bad thing to think about the baby Jesus and his
helplessness, or the dead Christ who was lying in the tomb, or the fire of the
Holy Spirit that burns in the preaching of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. These are all the ways and means that God has
used in drawing near to us, claiming us as his own, and bringing about our
salvation. The tabernacle was a sure
sign of God’s grace upon the people of Israel.
It showed that God claimed them as his own and worked out salvation for
them while in their midst. The
tabernacle, though, was a only a shadow of the greater things to come in
Christ.
The incarnation, the way that God has become man in the baby
Jesus, is something that we can look to for the assurance of God’s good will
towards us. By our sins we deserve for
God to hate us. This is not God’s problem,
but our problem. If we would do the good
and beneficial things God loves and not do the evil and selfish things that God
hates, then salvation would surely be according to the Law. But God has loved us even in spite of our
sins. And he has joined in the fight for
our salvation. That is what the
incarnation means. God does not sit on
the sidelines and watch to see how we are doing with our salvation—just
watching and judging. He makes his claim
and risks everything, joining himself in the most intimate way he possibly
could to us. Jesus is our brother, and
yet he is God.
The Israelites were able to look at the tabernacle and later
the temple and know that God had chosen them for salvation and every
blessing. You can look at the Lord Jesus
Christ, the fulfillment of the tabernacle and temple, and know that God has
chosen you for salvation. God did not
become man for his own sake. He did it
for your sake. At Christmas we must
recognize the astounding graciousness of God.
He has not left us to our own devices.
He has joined together with us.
He fights for us. He wins for
us. All of this so that we could live
together with him through the redemption, forgiveness, and sanctification that
Jesus has worked in his great sacrifice on the cross.
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