Misunderstood Promises

Gospel: Luke 1: 26-38

How often do we misread the promises of God! How often do we make them about our own pursuits in the world! God promises David an everlasting kingdom on the land, a promise that we interpret to mean the literal land of Israel and so we spill blood to justify this reading.  God promises to Mary that David's "eternal" kingdom would be restored in Jesus, but the kingdom of Israel is not restored in any political sense, though we insist on interpreting in this way to our own detriment.  

So often we misread these words: kingdom, land, garden, vineyard, Zion, Temple, Jerusalem.  We take them for literal, physical places but they are metaphors for the kingdom within the human person: our hearts and souls.  It is there alone God wants to dwell, there alone God has created as a Temple, as a homeland for God.  How little we struggle for this kingdom within.  We prefer our own interpretations because in them we avoid the truth: that our only enemy to be conquered is ourselves.  

The coming of Christ is not about an event that has already taken place in time, nor is it about some future second coming and our various imaginings of that event.  The coming of Christ is about God coming into our hearts and souls.  That is where the star leads, that is where the manger awaits, there is where the gifts are to be brought.  The journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem is a journey within where our hearts will give birth and bring forth God on earth in our deeds of loving kindness.