If you follow my decrees and are careful to obey my commands…I will grant peace in the land…I will look on you with favour….I will put my dwelling-place among you, and …I will walk among you and be your God, and you will be my people.

(Lev 26.3,6,9,11&12)

But will God really dwell on earth? The heavens, even the highest heaven, cannot contain you. How much less this temple I have built!

(1Kings 8.27)

He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognise him…The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth..

(Jn 1.10&14)

Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me….And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

(Matt 28.18&20)

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away…I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God…And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God…He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down for these words are trustworthy and true.”

(Rev 21.1-5)

No one can measure how long – in human years – the separation has lasted; how long the divine heart has yearned over the gulf which divides the creatures from their loving creator. But all down through history, the ache echoes through our cultures and our own hearts. There is truly an emptiness, which nothing can fill but the knowledge that we are at home with God.

All the strategies of humanity to banish God from their thinking are just so much posturing in the face of a brutal truth – because nothing and no one else can actually address the brokenness of our race, can truly bring healing, forgiveness, and hope. And those things are the products of a right relationship with God, of Eden restored, so that we walk with him in the cool of the day and have nothing to hide.

From the earliest times of God’s dealings with his people, there was an emphasis on a dwelling place, a promise of intimacy and permanence, embodied for a time in the temple. There was always a distance, a continued separation because no amount of animal sacrifice or ritual observation could permit the sinful people to enter boldly into the presence of an awesome and terrifyingly holy God. But the physical forms and festivals demonstrated God’s commitment to his own, to their welfare and his covenant promises.

And then, in Jesus, we find the first fulfillment of the promise that God will dwell with his people – are we so used to the phrase that we fail to recognise its power? It is a mystery beyond our comprehension, cause for exultant worship and silent adoration. While the world was yet flawed and polluted by sin; while humanity was yet bound in darkness; holiness took on flesh and blood, accepted the indignities of birth and childhood, and dwelt among his people, that they might know him..

Now we await his triumphant second coming, longing for the fullest fulfillment of the old promise, that God will dwell with us and there shall be nothing to separate us – because of the work of Jesus, the God-made-man, in dealing with our bondage and releasing us from the power of sin and death.

He is with us now, by his spirit; and yet how we desire that closer walk, that stronger experience of his presence, his voice, his love, which awaits us on the day when all things shall be made new..We celebrate the gift of God himself to us at Christmas time, and we long for more of him. That is not ungrateful in us, but right and proper, because we are made to enjoy more, made to dwell with him in eternal joy and unimaginable beauty and delight. Let us then be glad for the heavenly homesickness which keeps us looking forward, eager for the completion of Christ’s work and our final homecoming to our Father.

O Come, Thou key of David come, and open wide our heavenly home;

Make safe the way that leads on high, and close the path to misery.

Rejoice! Rejoice! Immanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

(12th cent, translated by JM Neale 1818-66)