Psalm
147:1, 5, 11–12; Antiphon, John 1:14—The
antiphon proclaims the mystery of the Incarnation: The Word became flesh and
dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory, glory as of the only Son from the
Father, full of grace and truth. In the original Greek, the word ‘dwelt’ is
derived from word for ‘tabernacle’. That is, the God who dwelt with His people
in the tabernacle in the wilderness, who delivered them from bondage in Egypt
and brought them into the Promised Land—He is the same God that assumed flesh
and dwelt with us as the God-man Jesus Christ, the same one who delivered us
from our bondage to sin, and will, at the Last Day, take us into our Promised
Land, eternal life with Him in heaven.
As we prepare for Sunday worship we will see that The
Lord Jesus Is Found in the Temple of His Church.
“The Lord Jesus “grew and became strong” (Luke 2:40); He “increased
in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man” (Luke 2:52). As His
body grew and developed, His mind also increased in knowledge and
understanding. For as our brother in the flesh, that we might “have
redemption through His blood” (Ephesians 1:7), He lived by faith in the
Word of His Father. Thus, He was catechized by His parents, who took Him up “to
Jerusalem every year at the Feast of the Passover” (Luke 2:41); and when He
was of age, He gave attention to the Holy Scriptures in His Father’s house
(Luke 2:46, 49). Christ Jesus is still found in His Church, in “the Word of
truth, the Gospel,” by which we are adopted by His Father and sealed with
His Spirit (Ephesians 1:5, 13). Thus do we gain “an understanding mind” to go
about our vocations, discerning “between good and evil” (1 Kings 3:9).
And so do we also go up to Jerusalem, to stand “before the ark of the covenant
of the Lord” (1 Kings 3:15), that is, in the Holy Communion of His body and
blood.
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