HE WAS STRUCK DEAD!

 One of the incidents in the Old Testament more difficult to understand (at least to me) is found in 2 Samuel 6 and 1 Chronicles 13-15 where King David was bringing the ark of God back to Jerusalem. The Philistines had captured the ark but they quickly found out that Jehovah was not going to allow it to be added to their motley collection of tribal gods taken in battle.  

The predicament the Philistines found themselves in was actually quite hilarious. In an attempt to debase Jehovah, the Philistines took the ark into the temple of their chief idol, Dagon, and placed it at the feet of Dagon to indicate its submission and inferiority. The next morning the Philistines found that Dagon had fallen prostrate in front of the ark.

The Philistines tried the same thing a second time and when they came back to the temple, they found that not only had Dagon fallen prostrate again but this time its head and hands had broken off. But that wasn’t the only thing that happened to the Philistines as a result of their having kidnapped the ark. A plague broke out among them—but not just any plague, it was a plague of hemorrhoids.  Now that will get your attention—and this happened long before the discovery of Preparation H.

The embarrassment of Dagon (1 Samuel 5) and the plague was enough. The Philistines decided that they had better return the ark before a more severe calamity befell them, and in their hurry to get rid of it, they dumped it in one of the outlying villages of Israel.

David was anxious to have the ark back in Jerusalem and at the center of Israel’s worship, and 2 Samuel 6 relates how he and his army went to retrieve it. The ark was considered to be the most important item in the tabernacle and it sat in the Holy of Holies, deep inside the portable temple. On the top of the ark was the mercy seat, and once a year the high priest went in and sprinkled the blood of a sacrifice there. The ark was a symbol of God’s presence, a visible sign that God was dwelling in Israel’s midst.

David and his men prepared a “new cart” for the ark to ride upon and the journey back home became one of celebration, with much singing and music. How fitting! It was shaping up to be a new day in Israel because the ark was coming home and riding in style on a new cart. However, the traveling worship service was interrupted when the oxen pulling the cart stumbled and Uzzah, one of the cart drivers, reached out to steady it. Without warning he was struck dead! A simple helpful gesture—and he was struck dead!

David reacted in anger, frustration and fear. “How can I ever bring the ark home?” he cried, and then had the ark sidetracked to a nearby property.

What does this mean to us? What can we learn from this story?

David was passionate about bringing the visible symbol of God’s presence back to the mainstream of Israel. Not only was the ark a symbol but God’s presence seemed to linger on the ark, as the Philistines and Uzzah had discovered. David’s intention was righteous, but somehow something had gone wrong.

David had cried, “How can I ever bring the ark home?” With his frustration and anger boiling over, he felt it was impossible for the nation to ever again experience the presence of God. His dream was dying right before his eyes.

Why had this happened? Why had Uzzah been struck dead? Who was to blame?

The answer is that David and the leadership of Israel were to blame. They did not take the time to find out how the ark was to be transported, so they came up with their own idea and built a “new cart” for the ark. This smacks of pride and arrogance and sounds rather like some today who blithely declare, “We have a better way; we know how to be more relevant and we understand what it will take to reach this generation.” And so they build what they declare is a new and better cart.

David’s mistake was that he tried to implement a new methodology when God had already clearly laid out how the ark was to be moved. 1 Chronicles 15:3-15 says that the ark was to be carried on the shoulders of the priests, and that was the only way it was to be moved—ever! Here’s how that translates to us: We are the priests of the New Covenant (1 Peter 2:9). Our shoulders represent our worship, our praise, our sacrifice of thanksgiving, and are to carry and usher in the presence of the Lord. It is our worship that brings the presence of the Lord, not “the new cart,” not our surroundings nor our programs. It is the praise and worship of God’s people that He responds to. “Yet you are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel” (Psalm 22:3, ESV).

The mistake of David and the leadership of Israel continues to be repeated today. Instead of inquiring of the Lord to see how we should proceed, we get busy building a new cart. After all, we reason, it’s a new day and we should have a new focus, a new program, a new logo, a new cart! And so with big wheels and boards, we build ourselves a new cart only to find, at the end of the day, that God had a plan all along and we didn’t take time to find it. The mistakes of the past live on.

“Bringing home the ark” means understanding what God wants and making the appropriate changes.

We can “bring home the ark” today!