Grace to you and peace from our loving God and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

We talk a lot about expectation during Advent. We sing of our awaiting the coming of the Lord. We pray for his coming. We celebrate the anticipation of it. "Come, thou long-expected Jesus" is our song.

But when Jesus arrived in the stable, he wasn't at all what or who was expected. Certainly not all who awaited the messiah were convinced that Jesus was the one. Many people in the world are still surprised that one such as Jesus could be honored and worshipped as the Son of God. What arose from that inauspicious birth long ago, indeed, is quite unlikely and is far from having been expected. We speak of expectation, but it would be more accurate to speak of surprise and wonder.

In today's Old Testament prophecy, the language of expectation takes the form of a metaphor—the metaphor of a house. God completely turns around David's plans and makes a promise that has endured for millennia. David observes the contrast and seeming inequity between his house and that of God: "See now, I am living in a house of cedar, but the ark of God stays in a tent." He therefore plans to correct the problem and build a house for God.

God has a few things to say about David's brainstorm, and he uses the prophet Nathan as messenger. Clearly God is not pleased with the plan, whether David's intentions are good or not. It is, first of all, presumptuous.

God says, "Are you the one to build me a house to live in?" Not recorded, but implied is: "Who do you think you are—a mere mortal, presuming to build a house for God?!"

Second, the very idea of building a place wherein God might dwell betrays a profound misunderstanding of the nature of God. So, God reminds David that God's presence has continued with the people of Israel wherever they were. God has no need of a dwelling place built by human hands.

Finally, God turns David's plan on its head: "Are you the one to build me a house to live in?...the Lord will make you a house...Your house and your kingdom shall be made sure for ever before me; your throne shall be established forever."

David expects to build God a temple—a house. God surprises David and us with a rebuke at the offer and with a promise that makes the idea of a house into a metaphor for God's own plans for the future. "Don't build a house of God. I will build a House of David that will last forever, and will become the resting place of all of the family of God." This becomes the promise—the covenant—that continues from Abraham and extends into the eternal purposes of God for humankind—a covenant fulfilled in the awaiting coming of Christ.

Prophets pick up the theme. Isaiah writes: "Out of the house of David shall come a Savior...the government shall be upon his shoulders—he shall fed his flock like a shepherd...he will come with righteousness and judge the earth..."

These words about the house of David led to even greater surprises and redefined expectations. Initially, God's promise to make of David a house forever seemed to point to an eternal Davidic dynasty. That expectation was destroyed with the conquest of Judah and Israel by Assyria and Babylon. Israel was forced to redefine—to reinterpret God's promise after these devastating events. "It was not that God had failed to keep the promise; the promise had been wrongly understood. How wrongly became clear only at Bethlehem, where the expectations of regal grandeur and imperial power associated with the coming of David's son were also turned upside down." (Proclamation 2, p. 33)

If we learn from such stories in scripture, it seems to me that one of the lessons is that we ought to expect the unexpected. One way to express the kernel of the New Testament is the simple phrase: "repent and believe." Even that tells us to turn around—the meaning of "repent."

The Bible is constantly reminding us of the unfathomable nature of God's ways:

"1 Corinthians 1:23ff: We preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than human beings, and the weakness of God is stronger than human beings...God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong, God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are..."

"Romans 11:33: O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are God's judgments and how inscrutable God's ways!"

Even folk wisdom knows about God's are of surprise, telling us simply that "God works in mysterious ways."

A prayer attributed to an unknown confederate soldier gives voice to the same truth:

I asked for strength that I might achieve;

I was made weak, that I might learn humbly to obey.

I asked for health, that I might do greater things;

I was given infirmity, that I might do better things

I asked for riches, that I might be happy;

I was given poverty, that I might be wise.

I asked for power, that I might have the praise of others;

I was given weakness, that I might feel the need of God.

I asked for all things that I might enjoy life;

I was given life that I might enjoy all things.

I got nothing that I asked for—but everything I had hoped for.

Almost despite myself, my unspoken prayers were answered.

I am among all men, most richly blessed.

The power of God to surprise is a lesson we learn slowly and with difficulty. We, like David, try to build a house for God according to our personal plans. We want things the way we prefer, and we want God to be where we can keep an eye on the activities of the divine. But God confounds our designs, shakes the foundations, and constructs salvation in a way that is always unexpected, always surprising.

The church has often been surprised in its own building of God's house. Even the church has associated itself with historic forces that it confidently identified as works of God, only to realize too late that it was sadly mistaken. Slavery, racial superiority, the subordination of women, laissez-fair capitalism. The list is long and growing.

The church and the people who make it up too often merely reflect the beliefs and aspirations of the culture, blindly imagining them to reflect God's will. Like ancient Israel, we project our will onto God and presume that our success is identical with the cause of God. But God refuses to be domesticated or confined to the pretentious houses we build. God will not be housed, captured, caged or controlled. We await Christ's coming in a palace, he comes to a stable.

Advent is an opportunity to remember that God's ways are not our own, to recognize that the Jesus who comes is not the one that has been, as the hymn says, "long-expected." In truth, we ought to expect to be surprised, not have our expectations of many years realized.

The gospel challenges us to make sense of the illogical, to see the logic of the nonsensical, to transcend our limits.

Søren Kierkegaard helps us to undertand. He tells a simple story of a prince who was riding one day through a rather poor section of a city in his kingdom. Looking through the curtains of his royal carriage, he catches a glimpse of the most beautiful maiden he had ever seen. Soon he finds excuses to drive near the spot where his eyes had beheld her on the chance that he might see her again. Before long he is infatuated with her. He desperately desires to ask her hand in marriage. But how should he go about it?

Of course, as the prince he could order her to the palace and command her to be his wife. But what kind of marriage would that be? Again, he thinks that he might masquerade as a peasant. Then when he has won her interest, he'll pull off his mask and reveal his true identity. Such trickery, however, didn't appeal to the prince.

Finally, he hits upon the most noble solution. He will lay aside his kingly robe, move into her neighborhood, and take up a vocation—say a carpenter. He'll live as she lived, get to know her friends, and learn to speak their language. Hopefully then, in the natural course of things, he will meet his beloved and gain her friendship, then her trust and admiration, and finally, her love. This the prince does, and finally when the love is won, his beloved comes to know his true identity.

This story portrays a beautiful way of understanding the seeming folly of the coming events at Bethlehem. God comes to us on our own terms, in the only way that enables an honest and intimate relationship with us. God built God's own house, and came to dwell with us in God's own time and in God's own way.

"Would you build me a house to dwell in?... The Lord will make you a house"

I close with Amos Wilder's poem, "Grace Confounding."

He came when he wasn't expected

as he always does;

though a few on the nightshift had the release early.

He came where he wasn't expected,

as he always does,

though a few magis were tipped off.

He came where even the Apostles couldn't go along,

in Bethlehem of all places,

on the edge of nowhere;

they had to place it in David's home town.

He is always one step ahead of us;

the space-age calls for new maps

and its altars and holy places are not yet marked.

Amen.

May the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep our hearts and minds through faith in Christ Jesus our Lord unto eternal life. Amen.