In Matthew 8: 19-20, a scribe comes up to Jesus and declares that he would go wherever Jesus would go, and Jesus gives a somewhat cryptic reply: “Foxes have dens and birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to rest his head.” Perhaps, the scribe was expecting that in following Jesus, this journey would eventually lead up to a definitive destination, a conquest of the land, some tangible territory to call his own, and the obtaining of some consequential place where he could settle down, find security, and call home.
It is fascinating to consider that a large part of the Bible has to do with creating, making, building, finding… a space for God to dwell in. There is almost a preoccupation to house and to contain God in the physical dwellings made by human hands.
In the historical records of 1 Chronicles 15, Joshua 3, Deuteronomy 31, Numbers 4, and Numbers 10, we read the documentation of how the Ark of the Covenant was carried about as the people sought out a place of rest. When peacetime arrived, King David had the idea to build God a House: “After the king had taken up residence in his house, and the LORD had given him rest from his enemies on every side, the king said to Nathan the prophet, ‘Here I am living in a house of cedar, but the ark of God dwells in a tent!’” (2 Samuel 7: 1-2) Yet, God is clear in His reply: “Go and tell David my servant, Thus, says the LORD: Is it you who would build me a house to dwell in? I have never dwelt in a house from the day I brought Israel up from Egypt to this day, but I have been going about in a tent or a tabernacle. As long as I have wandered about among the Israelites, did I ever say a word to any of the judges whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel: Why have you not built me a house of cedar?” (2 Samuel 7: 5-7)
God does not desire a house for himself, but this quest to house God, expresses a deeper human longing for shelter and stability, and in that way, humanity has projected its own desires on to God, with the idea that if I who am alive need a place to call home, then God also needs a home to dwell in. This sentiment to contain the Divine is again found in the encounter of the Transfiguration, where Peter says to Jesus, “Lord, it is good that we are here. If you wish, I will make three tents here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” (Matthew 17:4)
So it is not by coincidence, that at the mystery of the Incarnation, one of the very first human things that is associated with the Infant Jesus is the search for a place to give birth to the baby Jesus – “While they were there, the time came for her to have her child, and she gave birth to her firstborn son. She wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.” (Luke 2: 6-7) There is almost a prophetic outlier nature to this. As we know, the conventional rooms in the inn were at maximum capacity, and Jesus was thus birthed not in such a room, but in a manger, an annex building to the main building of the inn. This annex building is also a lowly place, housing the animals and serving as a storage facility. Annexes, are also add-ons and extensions of what is already existing so as to create greater capacity beyond the existing status quo of the existent building. Jesus being born in an annex is significant, as it tells us that He has come to give us something beyond what is already existing, and something beyond our expectations. He has come to extend the potential of the building. He has come to give us life to the full.
Fun fact: The word, “room” is in fact mentioned 83 times in the Bible, and its equivalent, “chamber”, is mentioned 32 times, while the word, “place”, a whopping 1070 times, and the word, “house” – an incredible 1364 times (The New American Bible Concordance, 2002).
Towards the end of Jesus’ earthly ministry, however, we see the emphasis on Earthly dwellings shifting to Heavenly dwellings. In John 14: 1-4 Jesus says, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You have faith in God; have faith also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If there were not, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back again and take you to myself, so that where I am you also may be. Where I am going you know the way.”
Our understanding of what is meant to be the House and Dwelling Place of God is thus transformed with the knowledge of how the room or home that Jesus is referring to, does not merely end with a physical space, but transcends the physics of actual spatialities. The letters of Peter affirm this: “Come to him, a living stone, rejected by human beings but chosen and precious in the sight of God, and, like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” (1 Peter 2: 4-5) It is no longer an earthly home that Christians are striving to build, but a new home as living tabernacles to house the Holy Spirit within ourselves, and as a foretaste of the Home that we are to attain to – the beatific vision where we are at our true home with God our Father and can daily see God our Father face to face.
Today, the Upper Room or the Cenacle where many of Jesus’ last earthly discourses were said, and where the Holy Spirit descended upon Mother Mary and the Apostles, has been attributed according to tradition, to the southern end of Mount Zion, and is located near the tomb of Caiaphas. Its actual location has been discussed for centuries, and its current site – the structural remnants of what is supposed to be the Upper Room together with the Tomb of David below it, is according to some historians and archaeologists the remaining part of a Byzantine church that was added on to the first building where the Upper room was, in the 4th century known as the Hagia Sion. While other historians and archaeologists believe that the Upper Room was a stand-alone building that was already there before the construction of the Hagia Sion. These scholarly traditions are derived from early Christian depictions of Jerusalem. A mosaic created in AD. 560 to 565 located in Madaba, Jordan, at the Church of St. George presents an early mapping of the landscape of Jerusalem. Buildings that have a significance to the Christian community are depicted with sloping red roofs. In this mosaic, the Hagia Sion is shown, together with a smaller building beside it, likely representing the Upper Room. At around the same time, in Rome, the mosaic in the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore represents the Hagia Sion and the Upper Room structure in a similar fashion (Clausen, 2016, Pixner, 1990; Pixner, 2010).
Regardless of where the actual location of the Upper Room was, at the heart of the Upper Room, is not so much the accurate coordinates of an actual physical place, but the Upper Room as a liminal space that invites us to the attainment of wisdom. Through the activity carried there with the washing of the disciples’ feet, with the institution of the Eucharist, with the institution of the sacrament of Reconciliation, with Jesus partaking of a meal, and with the theological sharings that unfolded – The Upper Room thus becomes a metaphor for a space that would facilitate and allow the growth of the Church as it embodies and takes on a new shape and trajectory that Christ had envisioned with the coming of the Holy Spirit.
The motif of a room, or dwelling place, takes on significance when we come to understand that it is not us, as the Lord God revealed to King David, who would build the house of God, but it is He who would set us apart, and construct a dwelling place of permanence for us. As some translations of Psalm 90: 1-2 proclaim: “O Lord, you have been our refuge and our dwelling place from generation to generation. Before the mountains were born, the earth and the world brought forth, from eternity to eternity you are God.
Whether this dwelling place comes into being, is also predicated upon whether, we would open the doors to our hearts and allow Christ in – As Christ is the Word made flesh, to welcome Christ means to welcome His Word: “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, as in all wisdom you teach and admonish one another, singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God.” (Colossians 3: 16)
God our Father wants us to enter into His House as His sons and daughters. He also wants to make His dwelling place within us.
By the Grace of God,
Brian Bartholomew Tan
References
Clausen, D. C. (2016). The Upper Room and Tomb of David: The History, Art and Archaeology of the Cenacle on Mount Zion. Jefferson, NC: McFarland.
The New American Bible Concordance. (2002). The New American Bible Concordance. Libreria Editrice Vaticana. Retrieved from https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0839/_FA.HTM
Pixner, B. (1990). The Church of the Apostles found on Mount Zion. Biblical Archaeology Review 16.3 May/June.
Pixner, B. (2010). Paths of the Messiah and Sites of the Early Church from Galilee to Jerusalem: Jesus and Jewish Christianity in Light of Archaeological Discoveries. Ed. Riesner, R. Trans. Myrick K, Randall, S. & Randall, M. San Francisco: Ignatius Press. Pp. 332-3.