-so here’s what we’re going to do, for the next two weeks we’re mellowing out a little, no powerpoints, no notes sheets, if you really want to take notes there’s paper we can give you, but we’re going to take things easy. We’re going to have story time.
-we’re going to look at stories that talk about worship. Next week will be stories from the New Testament, but today will be a story from the Old Testament.
-it concerns the Ark of the Covenant. Do you remember that thing? Indiana Jones. The Ark was consecrated by God, it was thought to be God on earth. Where the Ark was was a representation of God being there. When Israel went to battle, the Ark went first, like in the battle of Jericho, the Ark went first. When the Israelites crossed the Jordan, the Ark went first and the waters parted, the people crossed on dry ground.
-well our story starts in I Samuel 4. Eli is judge over Israel, he’s just gotten a new protégé named Samuel, but right now he’s in charge with his two sons. And the Philistines are the new guys on the block starting wars and trying to take over Israel.
-Israel goes to war with the Philistines, and they lose. So the people try to figure out why and what they can do and they come up with a plan. They decide to bring the Ark into the camp. They decide to let the Ark lead them to battle. When the Ark enters the camp with Eli’s two sons the Bible says they let out a great shout and the ground shook.
-now the Philistines, a little ways away, they hear this, feel the ground shake and think, O crap. They brought in God. Not just any God, the Hebrew God who caused all the plagues in Egypt. God is physically in the camp, we are screwed. But the captains say, no, we have to fight, we have to win, gives some inspirational war movie speech in Philistinian and off to war they go. And they win. They capture the Ark. The capture God.
-so the Philistines take the Ark and they take it to their religious center of Ashdod. They carry the Ark into the temple of Dagon, their god, and set the Ark at his feet as an offering, basically saying their god is over the Hebrew God.
-the next day they come into the temple of Dagon, and Dagon’s down. Their god was on the floor facedown before the Ark of the Covenant. So they pick Dagon back up, put him back where he should be.
-the next day the priests come in and Dagon’s on the floor again, fallen in front of the Ark of the Lord. Except this time, Dagon’s hands and his head broke off. Israel’s God just killed their god. Then all the people in the city of Ashdod begin to get tumors and rats appear and spread disease that starts killing people.
-so the leaders of the Philistines get together and ask what should we do? The Hebrew God is killing us. They decide to take it out of Dagon’s city and take it to the city of Gath.
-the Ark comes to the city of Gath, and so do tumors and disease and rats and death. The people are dying and in torment there. So they meet and try to figure out what to do again. And the leaders decide to move the Ark further away to the Philistine city of Ekron.
-the problem is, now word has spread. The people of Ekron see it coming and cry out thinking their leaders are trying to kill them, that’s why the Ark is coming. And people are dying and tumors and finally the rulers say we have to get rid of this thing, we have to give it back to Israel.
-so the leaders call their priests and ask what to do, how do we give Israel their God back and not make it angry. So the priests say to make sure not to send it away empty-handed. They suggest making tumors and rats out of gold as a sign acknowledging they knew the problems were from the Hebrew God. So they make five gold tumors and five gold rats and put them in a chest.
-then they get a new cart, hook up two cows to pull it. They put the Ark in, they put the treasure in, then they point it towards Israel. They have some guys follow it to the border to make sure it keeps going straight, which it does, when it hits the border they go home.
-so on this day in the little Israelite town of Beth Shemesh, the people are out in the valley harvesting wheat, they look up and see something shiny in the distance walking towards them. The cart keeps coming until it hits a rock and stops. The people are so excited, they get some Levites, the tribe of priests, and have them take Ark off the cart. They break the cart and turn it into firewood and offer burnt offerings and sacrifices to God.
-but in all their joy, seventy people from Beth Shemesh are struck down by God. Apparently in their excitement to see the Ark back, they forget this is God. There are rules on how we treat the Ark. They decided to just open it up and look inside, a definite no-no, especially if you’ve seen Raiders of the Lost Ark. So the people realize and remember how sacred this is, this is God, He must be treated properly. So they take the Ark to a man named Abinidab, the Ark stays at his house, and the Levites consecrate Abinidab’s son Eleazar to guard the Ark.
-and that’s where it stay for almost fifty years. For the rest of I Samuel it isn’t mentioned. The Ark wasn’t taken back to the Temple, it wasn’t taken to a holy site, the Ark stayed at Abinidab’s house. Samuel becomes judge and doesn’t move it. The Israelites get a king, King Saul, and he doesn’t move the Ark. The Ark isn’t mentioned again until David becomes king. He conquers the city of Jerusalem and sets it up as a holy city, the capital.
-and in setting that up, David decides to go get the Ark and bring it to Jerusalem. He puts the Ark in a brand new cart, they start heading back to Jerusalem, singing praise songs to God, they had musical instruments, travelling Israelite worship band. Until them came to Nacon’s house, specifically his threshing floor. A threshing floor was a big stone where people used to beat the wheat, or thresh it, to get the seed out. When they get to that stone, the oxen pulling the cart stumble, the Ark rocks a little and a guy named Uzzah who was standing next to the Ark braces it with his hand. He is immediately struck dead. Instantly.
-you do not touch the Ark. You do not touch God. The Ark is holy. And David stops. He’s angry with God. He’s afraid of God. The sense of holiness is starting to sink in, what on earth do we do?
-all this takes place next a house that belongs to Obed-Edom. David takes the Ark to Obed-Edom’s house and asks him to take care of it. The Ark stays there for thee months, and Obed-Edom and everyone in his family are extremely blessed This helps David realize God is not mad, but things need to be done right.
-so David finds out how to properly move the Ark. He shows up not dressed as a king, but as a priest, which is his role at that time. They rejoice and sing songs with instruments like trumpets (think back to Jericho). And every six steps they walk they stop and sacrifice a bull and a fattened calf to God.
-and it works, and everyone’s happy, and they start singing louder, and rejoicing more, and David starts to dance, the Bible says he danced with all his might.
-and the get to Jerusalem, and the people are lining the streets and singing and dancing, and David’s at the front and now he’s dancing like crazy, he’s leaping and jumping and going crazy for God. And his wife sees him, and she hates him for it.
-but David doesn’t know. He doesn’t care. He’s praising God. They keep singing, sacrificing, moving until they get to a tent David had set up for the Ark. They had just conquered Jerusalem, the Temple wasn’t built yet, so they had a special tent (and this isn’t a small camping tent) set up for the Ark in the tent. Then David gave God burnt offerings and fellowship offerings to God. Then he gave all the people cakes (remember Easter Sunday!), every single person in the crowd got a cake made of dates or raisins.
-so everyone eats cake, they rejoice, they party, they go home. It’s a good day. Until David gets home. His wife is waiting, and she’s not happy. I mean, who does David think he is? He is the king! He doesn’t wear peasant clothes like the priests. He doesn’t dance like that. David was embarrassing himself in front of low people, even slave girls, David’s in with them dancing and not acting as a king, how dare he.
-and David responds that God chose him. He is the king God wanted. And because of that he will celebrate, he says he will celebrate and become even more undignified than what she just saw. He will humiliate himself in his own eyes, it’s not about pride, it’s about God. When she thinks the slave girls will now see David as lowly like them, he says they saw their king worshipping his God and they will hold him in honor.
-and because of her bad attitude towards David and his praising God, she never had any children. She would never be the queen who is the mother of the line of kings, that goes to another woman David meets later.
-and that is our story for today. Instead of me talking about it, I want you guys to talk about it. We’re going to break into groups and discuss the story.
