This is how you read it –
(light green beads) God created the world. God sustained it for thousands of years.
(Deep green small bead)
Then, God said to the Jewish people
“I want to dwell among you”
and the Mishkon,
the traveling tabernacle, was built.
The tangible reminder that a non-tangible presence was among them.
It wasn’t a house for God
so much as a reminder
that God was already present with them.
(Large deep green bead)
Thousands of years passed with Jews following the One God.
Then the Holy Spirit (red bead)
spoke to Mary (blue bead).
God wanted to dwell among us even more intimately.
God took up residence inside Mary.
It wasn’t something forced.
She was asked.
She said “Here I am. I’m your servant.
Do unto me according to your will.”
God took up residence within her and created a pure, holy, being, a blend of past, present and future, fully human, fully Spirit, and the culmination of the Jewish hope. (Bead with green, red, blue, and white)
Never before in human history has God spoken to someone and asked them to make a place for God within themselves. He’d asked plenty to trust and to follow, but never to actually have God dwell within.
When Jesus came into the world, he asks us to do the same – to make a place for God in our hearts, to let God work through us. God is not in a building – God never was. God is here, within us, now.