10 February 2014 - story ark

10 February 2014 - story ark

Let us enter into his dwelling,
let us worship at his footstool. 

Do we recognize his presence when we're near to him?  In the ark there were "the two stone tablets which Moses had put there at Horeb".  The tablets within the ark contain the very words of God written by his own hand.  When Moses receives these tablets his face is lit up so brightly that the people of Israel can't look at him.  But Jesus himself is the Word made Flesh who makes his dwelling among us.  The shekinah glory of the Father shines to fill the Holy of Holies, and yet how much more does he shine over Jesus Christ.  We see hints of this at his baptism and transfiguration.  Jesus is where God makes his dwelling among us (cf. Rev. 21:3).  The Church in which he dwells is the New Jerusalem, come down from heaven.  Yet unlike the Jerusalem of Solomon in today's first reading the New Jerusalem has no temple building because "its temple is the Lord God almighty and the Lamb."

In the Old Testament the law is written on stone tablets.  This is the focal point of the presence of God.  In the New Testament the Word of the Father, the Word which contains the glorious words of those tablets, takes on flesh.  And yet he does not stop there.  He is not content to remain external to us.  Now the law is written "not on tablets of stone but on the tablets that are hearts of flesh" (cf. 2 Cor 3:3).

Because he desires to come so close to us we say with the psalmist:

Advance, O LORD, to your resting place,
you and the ark of your majesty.

He wants this resting place to be in our hearts.  This is the sabbath rest symbolized from the dawn of creation, the rest Moses never entered in the promised land, the rest toward which we all journey as pilgrims of faith.

Let us be like the crowds of the time of Jesus who "immediately recognized him."  He longs to dwell in us.   We shouldn't hesitate to reach out to him in faith with all of our needs and with the needs of our families and friends.

they laid the sick in the marketplaces
and begged him that they might touch only the tassel on his cloak;
and as many as touched it were healed.

Imagine the disruption the to daily buying and selling that this must cause.  But Jesus does not hesitate to unleash his healing power even in the marketplaces.  He is, after all, the new temple.  He sanctifies any situation in which he finds himself.  He cleanses the sick rather than being made unclean by them.  And as he dwells in our hearts he does this through us as well.

We have heard time and again the modes of presence of the LORD within his Church.  He is present in the Scriptures, present in the gathered community, and present in the poor and needy.  He is present in all the Sacraments, for it is he who acts in them.  He is the most present in the Eucharist where find encounter him bodily and not just in the Spirit.  Yet in all of these he only offers an invitation.  He stands at the door and knocks.  It is to us to open it to him.  Let us open our hearts wide to Christ.

I have truly built you a princely house,
a dwelling where you may abide forever.”

When he dwells in us we shall be "clothed with justice" and "shout merrily for joy."