Day #107 | "God Will Be Glorified"

LOOK | WHAT DOES IT SAY?

Read 2 Samuel 6:1-23; 1 Chronicles 13:1-4, 15:1-16:3, and 16:31-53

THINK | WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

The readings for Day #107 in Steinmann's chronological plan are all centered around worship.

The holy presence of God among us. The Ark of the Covenant represents God's presence in the midst of his people, and is a reminder that God desires to be in relationship, among us, in our midst. But there is a danger there. There is a danger that we would begin to see the sacred as merely normal, and that we would begin to be too casual in our relationship with God, losing our sense of awe and wonder. It seems to be the case that we tend to do this rather quickly. Now the Ark had been given to the people as a reminder of God's presence in their midst, but it was also supposed to be carried with poles (Exodus 25:14) so that no one actually touched the Ark itself--a reminder that God is simultaneously in our midst, but that some reverential distance is still required (because of his holiness, otherness, infinite power, and glory). Between travels, the Ark was also supposed to remain inside the Tabernacle, in the Holy of Holies in the midst of the Tabernacle, where even the High Priest could only enter once per year on the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 16:2ff). But in the years since, it seems like the Ark of the Covenant had become a sort of traveling good luck charm, taken into battles to ensure victory (1 Samuel 4:3-4)--which means that someone would have had to go in to the Tabernacle, against God's prescriptions, in order to take it out for a field trip. Now, here, we find the Ark taken out again without God commanding it to happen, and the priests are not carrying it by its poles on foot with reverence and awe, but instead they've thrown it onto the back of a cart and strapped it down to get it where they want to take it faster and with less effort. You see how this might already be a problem? And now, having already approached God with excessive casualness and gone against presecriptions, Uzzah reaches out his hand to touch the Ark--and so God chooses to use this moment to put an end to the overly casual approach to him that the people have taken, and glorifies himself in the midst of Israel.

Making an example of Uzzah. There is a question that many have here about Uzzah, and whether God was just in striking him down for what seemed like an unintentional accident. (1) Uzzah's reaching out may have been an accident, but everything that brought him up to that moment came out of excessive casualness and dismissal of God's commands regarding the Ark. (2) I still believe that God loved Uzzah. While God may have made an example of his earthly body by striking him down, I believe that Uzzah opened his eyes half a moment later in the Kingdom of Heaven.

David was undignified before men, and refined in the eyes of God. While David's wife Michal, the daughter of Saul, shared her dad's sense of the importance of appearances above all, David was different. He had been a shepherd, a military leader, an outlaw, a fugitive, and a rebel leader. He was rougher around the edges. And what brought him to his role as king was not that he could play the part of king the best and be the best politician, but that he loved God. (This was true even after his significant moral failure with Bathsheba.) So in this reading, we see David dancing among the people in his linen under-robe, celebrating and singing. He doesn't care if he looks dignified. He doesn't care that men in his day were to remain stoic, calm, unmoved, and in control--even more so in the case of the King. Instead he pushed all of that to one side, picked up the flag-sticks, struck up the band, and danced in public in a way that showed that his own honor was no important but that God's was. That's the kind of godly leadership that we need. And God blessed it.

DO | HOW DO WE RESPOND?

How can we respond in our worship, attitude, and actions? IN OUR WORSHIP we should be emboldened to come near to God because he desires to be near to us. And yet, not to be flippant or casual in how we do this. God will be glorified in our midst--either because we will honor him above ourselves as David did, or because God will honor himself in our midst as he did with Uzzah.

PRAY | HOW DOES THIS BRING US TO GOD?

Whether in response to anything pointed out here, or to something else in your Bible reading time, take a few moments before you close up your Bible to pray in response to God. If you need a format for prayer, both the ACTS (Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication), CALL (Confess, Ask, Love, Listen), and PRAY (Praise, Repent, Ask, Yield) methods are helpful ways to stay consistent.

-Sean