You can’t be too careful with an Ark. I saw Melanie for the second time when I saw Raiders of the Lost Ark in Waco Hall. Even a scientist like Indiana Jones came to believe in the awesome power of the Ark of the Covenant. In the movie, the Nazis thought they would win the war if they could capture it. The ark was more powerful than they knew. Eventually, the British and Americans recaptured it. What to do with it? They hauled it on a cart and left it on a shelf in a warehouse.
What do you do if you think you have captured a god? The Philistines ended up with the Ark when they defeated Israel. They put it in the temple of their fish-faced god Dagon. This did not go well for Dagon. The idol fell on its face before the ark. Dagon lost on his home court?! Christopher Wright says false gods never fail to fail. The Philistines needed a better God. So they tried to prop Dagon up, but the next day they found him again with hands and head broken off on his face before the ark. Then people started getting sick. So they sent it to Gaza. The people of Gaza were also sick from the ark so they sent it to Ashdod. Ashdod wanted no part of it.
I don’t know where the Ark is today, but the God who sat on its Mercy Seat in the Tabernacle and temple is alive and well. We need not fear the Ark but we should fear the Lord. Inescapable in his omnipresence, God is everywhere we go. He stubbornly refuses to be domesticated or coopted. Just when you think he owes you, you realize that after he sent his only Son, he could never owe us anything. God is not a talisman to be worn. Nor can we safely put him on a shelf until we need him. One old preacher said, “God just always is.”
The periodic obsession with the Ark is time misspent. God has come once and for all in Jesus. He is not hard to find. What to do with Jesus? In his letter to the Philippians, Paul reminded us that every knee will bow and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord. I’m starting now. The true God never fails to win. Worship him today.
