The Daily Guide. grow. pray. study. from The United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, Kansas, United States "A golden symbol of God’s throne" for Friday, 9 September 2016Exodus 25:10 “They are to make an ark of acacia-wood three-and-three-quarters feet long, two-and-a-quarter feet wide and two-and-a-quarter feet high. 11 You are to overlay it with pure gold — overlay it both inside and outside — and put a molding of gold around the top of it. 12 Cast four gold rings for it, and attach them to its four feet, two rings on each side. 13 Make poles of acacia-wood, and overlay them with gold. 14 Put the poles into the rings on the sides of the ark; you will use them to carry the ark. 15 The poles are to remain in the rings of the ark; they are not to be removed from it. 16 Into the ark you are to put the testimony which I am about to give you.
(ii) 17 “You are to make a cover for the ark out of pure gold; it is to be three-and-three-quarters feet long and two-and-a-quarter feet high. 18 You are to make two k’ruvim of gold. Make them of hammered work for the two ends of the ark-cover. 19 Make one keruv for one end and one keruv for the other end; make the k’ruvim of one piece with the ark-cover at its two ends. 20 The k’ruvim will have their wings spread out above, so that their wings cover the ark, and their faces are toward each other and toward the ark-cover. 21 You are to put the ark-cover on top of the ark.
“Inside the ark you will put the testimony that I am about to give you. 22 There I will meet with you. I will speak with you from above the ark-cover, from between the two k’ruvim which are on the ark for the testimony, about all the orders I am giving you for the people of Isra’el.
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It may be hard to visualize the desert sanctuary just from the Biblical text. Click here to view a web page with photos of a full-size model of the sanctuary built in the desert in Israel. Indiana Jones may have made more people aware of “the Ark of the Covenant” than all of the country’s Sunday Schools. But the Ark was not a strange, spooky power source (though it seems clear that the Power behind it would not have helped the Nazis). The Ark was a gold-plated acacia wood chest that held the Ten Commandments, God’s covenant with Israel. Its golden cover with two angels on it represented God’s throne, the place from which God ruled over all that existed.
• Tradition (in many versions) said the sacred Ark was somehow hidden before Babylon leveled Solomon’s Temple in 586 BCE. But early Christians never wrote about searching for the Ark, and hardly ever mentioned it in their writings. Revelation 11:19 put the Ark in a heavenly vision. “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and his Christ,” the prophet said, and “God’s temple in heaven was opened, and the chest containing his covenant appeared in his temple.” How can you value God’s covenant (and your part in it—cf. Galatians 3:29), without viewing the Ark as a magical object apart from its role in Israel’s worship?
• John evoked the Ark’s cover in his description of Jesus’ tomb after the Resurrection (cf. John 20:12). Most scholars understand Romans 3:25 and 1 John 4:10 as using the image of the cover or “mercy seat” (Hebrew kapporet) to describe Jesus’ saving work. How can it deepen your gratitude for forgiveness and salvation to picture it as coming directly from the center of God’s rulership over the universe?
Prayer: LORD God, just a wooden box covered with gold. Instead of Pharaoh’s massive stone
temples your power rested in the symbol of your relationship with your people. Please dwell in my heart as of old you dwelt in the Ark of your covenant. Amen.
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Insights from Darren Lippe
Darren Lippe helps facilitate Journey 101 “Loving God” classes, guides a 7th-grade Sunday school class, is a member of a small group & a men’s group, and serves on the Curriculum team.As a kid, I was a huge fan of the Encyclopedia Brown series of books. They contained a set of mysteries with some logical fallacy for the reader to discover, & if the reader was stumped, a solution was provided at the end of the chapter. Leroy Brown is a 10-year-old boy living in Idaville. Since he is extremely knowledgeable for his age, he is given the nickname “Encyclopedia.” He often helps his father, Idaville’s Chief of Police, to solve mysteries while eating dinner and decides to open up his own Detective Agency to help neighborhood kids solve other mysteries:
Inspired by Encyclopedia Brown, I opened my own detective agency with a card table in our basement. Business was good. However, one fateful Saturday afternoon a rapid series of cases overwhelmed the agency: The Case of the Missing Oreos, The Mystery of the Oreo Crumbs Appearing in the Milk Carton, & the Whodunit of Who Drank Out of the Milk Carton Directly After Eating Oreos. Sadly, an unanticipated conflict of interest ultimately caused the firm’s demise.So, today, let’s look at the Case of the Missing Ark of the Covenant.
The Ark of the Covenant (also called the Ark of God & the Ark of Testimony) is a portable chest covered in gold that contained the Ten Commandments on 2 stone tablets, a golden pot of Manna, & Aaron’s staff. The Ark, symbolic of the covenant God made with His chosen people, was carried by the Israelites during their years in the wilderness before being placed in the Temple’s Holy of Holies. The Mercy Seat was on top of the Ark where the High Priest would sprinkle sacrificial blood once a year to atone for his sins & the sins of the people.
This Ark is now missing. The last mention of its location is in 2 Chronicles (2 Chronicles 35:1-6) when King Josiah orders the return of the Ark to Jerusalem. Forty years later, the Temple is raided & Jerusalem burned to the ground. Was the Ark stolen? Was the Ark destroyed in the sacking of Jerusalem? Or, as suggested in Maccabees (2 Maccabees 2:1-4), did the prophet Jeremiah, at God’s request, hide the Ark in a cave on the mountain where Moses encountered God?
The implications of the missing Ark seem quite serious. What evidence can we see of God’s covenant with us? How can God’s children atone for their sins without offering sacrifices via the Mercy Seat? Does it imply that evil has somehow triumphed over God?
Unlike Encyclopedia Brown, perhaps there isn’t supposed to be a solution to our mystery. The prophet Jeremiah writes in 3:15-16 that a new Shepherd will arrive, that the Ark of the Covenant will no longer be mentioned, much less remembered, & that a replacement will never be needed. With Christ’s proclamation of a New Covenant, with His atoning sacrifice on the cross, & with His resurrection conquering evil, it becomes a little clearer why only God knows the Ark’s current whereabouts.
You know, this week I was thinking I might re-open the old firm. Lots of easy money to be had what with the Case of the Missing Marching Band Shoes & the Mystery of the Un-Emptied Dishwasher. However, I opted to pass since an inherent conflict of interest once again arose when my wife, Doris, presented the highly controversial Case of the Empty Toilet Paper Holder.
1Donald J. Sobol, Encyclopedia Brown: Boy Detective (New York: Penguin, 1963): 8
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It may be hard to visualize the desert sanctuary just from the Biblical text. Click here to view a web page with photos of a full-size model of the sanctuary built in the desert in Israel.
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