the dawn from on high shall break upon us
This is the dawn which breaks tomorrow. The Lord, the God of Israel comes to us. This is not merely a "one and done" historical event. This is the dawn which breaks tomorrow. The Lord not only comes for Israel. He comes for you and me. Israel knows what it is like to be in the power of their enemies. But so do we. Sin and death are our enemies. The Lord, the God of Israel comes to set us free. He frees us not just from the hands of humans who hate us, but from the hands of the Devil. And this is what his promise has always been. Even free from occupying forces like Rome the promise is not fulfilled. We are not free to worship him without fear, holy and righteous in his sight all the days of our life. Simply being free from Rome still leaves a multitude of risks and causes for fear. But free from the hands of our true enemy we have nothing else to fear. He shines on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death. It isn't that he just removes one thing which casts a shadow. He shines so brightly the whole valley is illuminated and all shadows flee.
And so we want him to find a place among us. We want him to have a dwelling place here. But we should learn from all that he does for us that we don't have the power to prepare a suitable place for him.
“Go, tell my servant David, ‘Thus says the LORD:
Should you build me a house to dwell in?
“‘It was I who took you from the pasture
and from the care of the flock
to be commander of my people Israel.
We have not the strength to prepare a dwelling for a God so mighty and full of love as this. He is always with us, destroying the enemies of sin before us. He even destroys death before us. He makes us a place where we can dwell secure. How are we supposed to prepare a place for him? Yet we sense that the tent in which he dwells should be more. We long for him to have a throne suited to his majestic countenance. If this is to be the case he must make this dwelling place for himself.
I will raise up your heir after you, sprung from your loins,
and I will make his Kingdom firm.
I will be a father to him,
and he shall be a son to me.
He comes to us as the only begotten Son of the Father. In Mary he finds a new and better dwelling than the tent, and new and better dwelling than the temple. And at the same time he comes to Mary he unites himself to all mankind. God comes to dwell in the human heart. The invitation this morning is for each of us to allow him to dwell more in our hearts as well. We are to let him take on flesh more and more concretely in each of our lives. The conditions for this have been met. We see the place prepared, not by us, but by Jesus himself. To invite him more fully into our hearts we do well to unite ourselves to Mary. For Mary, and only Mary of all mankind, is perfectly united to Jesus from first to last. She knows the secret of being a dwelling place prepared by the LORD. She desires to teach us that secret today.
Indeed, it is as though we hear Mary herself singing "For ever I will sing the goodness of the Lord." She invites us to learn the favors of the LORD and to join the song. With the liturgy today we pray:
O Radiant Dawn,
splendor of eternal light, sun of justice:
come and shine on those who dwell in darkness and in the shadow of death.
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