We are the temple of God’s presence

December 14, 2020
Father Charles Puthota

The little Julia and her grandfather were taking a walk in their rural neighborhood, sharing precious moments of conversation about what children tend to ask in their inimitable style of innocence and insight. They happened to pass an open well when the girl says to him: “Grandpa, where does God live?” Holding her arms firmly back, the grandfather asks the girl to look down into the water in the well. He says to her, “Tell me what you see.” The girl says, “I see myself, grandpa.” The man says, “Julia, that is where God lives. God lives in you.“

The story seems almost simplistic, but it underscores the towering truth about God’s intimate presence, his love and grace, and our abiding relationship with him. God lives in each one of us. We are the temple of God’s presence. We are made in the image and likeness of God. We are almost like God, despite our flaws and frailties, despite our selfishness and sinfulness. If children are like their parents in many ways, we as God’s children are like God in many ways. We carry the divine DNA in us. We are capable of reflecting God’s image and likeness to one another.

As we go about revealing God to one another, we build up the human family capable of thinking, saying, and doing things that reflect God. In our values and vision, in our approach to God and the world, in all our quests and questions, in our joys and hopes, we keep longing for God’s love and grace. All our statements about ourselves are ultimately about God because we consciously or unconsciously keep reaching out to transcendence. Our inadequacies are implicitly in reference to God’s truth, beauty, and goodness. We are made for God and our hearts are restless, constantly seeking within and beyond us something that will fulfill and complete us. In the human family, highly capable of revealing God’s presence to one another, God lives. God loves. God cherishes. God cares. God comforts. God heals. God gives. God forgives. God calls. God delights. God fulfills.

The word of God this fourth Sunday of Advent celebrates the truth that God lives in human beings. The Christmas season that is almost upon us calls us to deepen the mystery of God becoming one with us through his son Jesus Christ.

In the first reading, David in his childlike manner wants to build a house for God. How could he live in a cedar house while God lived in a tent? God must have chuckled. God is not to be confined to a tent or a building or a nation or a race. God is God of all peoples and nations. Beyond the physical structures, God will truly be worshipped in spirit and truth. God promises to raise up an heir to David, who will be God’s son, whose kingdom will never end. The people will become the house where God will live through his son, a promise that will fuel their longings for the Messiah.

The exquisite beauty of the Annunciation in the Gospel is a theme celebrated by painters and poets in sheer delight of God meeting a young woman at Nazareth, thus fulfilling the Messianic promise and the longings of peoples. This is the “revelation of the mystery kept secret for long ages, but now manifested…and…made known to all nations…” about which Paul speaks in Romans. Mary becomes the house of God’s son when she consents to let him become one with human beings. Jesus takes on the human form and pitches his tent among us. We the people all over the world are the house of God. There shall be no end to God’s kingdom among his people.

As we celebrate God’s dwelling in word and sacrament, in history, mystery and majesty, we are once again thrilled at the mystery of the Incarnation. The current pandemic has spooked the world in all sorts of tragic and heartbreaking ways, but we have the assurance again this Christmas season that God is dwelling in us, in all our triumphs and troubles, through the holy baby in the manger, who is forever our light and life, shepherding us through the dark times to green pastures, where we shall rest and recuperate, and gain the strength and fullness of life.

Father Charles Puthota is pastor of St. Elizabeth Parish, San Francisco.