How to Carry your Cross
2 Samuel 6:1-23
Religion has always been part of your life. Maybe you grew up in a family that attended and participated church every Sunday but even if you haven’t, you saw and drove by temples, churches and mosques where people gathered for religious ceremonies where you lived. Religion was an important backdrop for many of the ideologies and controversies that reached your ears daily. Religion wasn’t just part of your life experience but also of all those who came before you. In every culture on earth, even those that do not exist anymore, there are evidence of religion in artifacts, rituals and texts held sacred. You really cannot escape the fact that people practice and are influence by religion, even those that think they do not have one. Worship is just one of those things people do. Even when they are not aware of it.
So, what exactly is religion? I guess one can say that there is this innate yearning in us to find meaning in life and religion is that what guides us in our search for meaning and truth. We believe that God exists and that He is the source of truth and meaning. We believe He reveals Himself to us. He also reveals to us what is important to Him and our wellbeing. But what He reveals is so rich and multidimensional that we need some help in making it part of our lives. We need symbols and rituals. Symbols are signs that we can physically see and touch but points to mysteries that we cannot see and touch even though we can sense them, and they are important and determine our lives to a great extent. More so even than things we can see and touch.
You see this is how we should understand the Ark of the Covenant. To some looking in from outside the people of Israel’s faith, it might look like a very strange piece of luggage and nothing more. But to the people of Israel it was a very powerful symbol. It pointed to characteristics of God and to things important to them in a way that helped them through life and gave them a sense of belonging and purpose in this world.
In 2 Samuel 6, king David decides to take it to Jerusalem and to make a big ceremony off it. Why? To attract more people’s attention. To share it. If you discover a sense of meaning and purpose, you want to share it with others because you believe it will be good for everybody. You then use your symbols to educate others about God and their meaning.
So, what did this symbol point to? What did it say about God and what was important to Him? The Ark contained two things. Manna, the substance God provided whilst the Israelites fled Egypt and were in the desert. It was a sign of the fact that this God provides for us even when it comes to our most basic and bodily needs; that He can do so in ways we cannot even foresee at times when we need it most. It also contained the law of Moses. Those were the moral instruction God gave his people to equip them to live as his people. So, there is God’s provision physically but also morally. But then most importantly, on the Ark there was two Cherubs. In between them one would expect God Himself seated on a throne. There were many gods around in those days and almost all of them were depicted, embodied by a statue. Yet, with the Ark it was different. The space between the cherubs were indeed called a seat but a seat of mercy. God was not depicted on it as if to say this God is too huge to be captured by a statue. But you can know this about him. He is merciful. He is a God of grace that forgives and gives second chances. It is almost like the seat of merci communicated that this God had a lap and his children were welcome on it.
Can you imagine how knowing these three things launched you into life in a very helpful and encouraging way? You could life and approach your life knowing that you have a God with the means to provide in your physical needs. You know you belonged to a God that knows what is right and what is wrong and reveal it to you. And you belong to a God that has mercy for your mistakes and shortcomings.
I mean even if you as you sit here realize and embrace these things about God right now or anew, you will feel how it lift your spirit and confidence. These things are still true about God and when we forget them our lives run into all kinds of troubles and addictions. God still provides what his children needs, He still guides us on what is right and wrong and He is still, even more than ever, merciful. Knowing that is life 101.
I haven’t seen an ark in one church. The only place I have seen it is in an Indiana Jones movie. Because it was destroyed. And it wasn’t destroyed because what it pointed to isn’t true anymore. It was probably destroyed because it wasn’t carried right. If we carry symbols wrong and interpret them contrary to what they actually stood for, they become meaningless and confrontational and eventually forgotten. They then get replaced or become museum pieces.
I don’t long for us to have the ark back. I find it interesting but not essential. I guess I am no Indiana Jones. Do you know why? Because the ark got replaced by something better… with a much more powerful symbol which stress the same things about God in an even better way. That symbol is the cross of Jesus. This Roman torture device points, because of what Jesus has done, to the fact that God understands and provides in our bodily needs. He embraced it by becoming human. He knows what it is to be hungry and in pain. It shows that our Lord knows what is right and what is wrong.
It isn’t determined by what is comfortable and convenient for Him, He put his life on the line for what is right. It shows me that God is merciful beyond what we could ever have imagined. He brought the costly sacrifice we were unable to. The cross replaced the Ark as the ultimate symbol for us. And Jesus calls us who rejoice and benefit from its meaning; to carry it into our community and share its good news.
It’s meaning is still the greatest source of hope for people. Something many long for and need to hear. But how we carry it makes all the difference in how it will be received and accepted. Religion can either help and direct people or it can harm and kill people. The same could be said for many things… Money, sex and drugs. So, let us look what we can gather from the mistakes David and the people of his time made in carrying their symbol out into the world.
Don’t load it; carry it
The first mistake they made is that they put their symbol on a new wagon. You could easily miss that this was even a mistake if you do not know that in Numbers 7:9 and in Deuteronomy 10:8 Israel is instructed to not load the Ark on a wagon, but to carry it on their shoulders. Putting it on a new wagon was something they copied from the Philistines that stole the ark and used it to show their power and impress rather than to point to what it stands for.
But one may ask what was the big deal? Considering the distance the ark had to travel, wasn’t it a good and beneficial thing for it to be put on the ark?
There are quite a few reasons why carrying it on the shoulders made a huge difference. Firstly, the ark was higher when carried on shoulders rather than on a wagon. That meant that those at the back could see it better. That meant more people got to see and be inspired by it. Who walked at the back? The elderly, children and disabled people of lower status. On the shoulders, the ark included them. For some reason religion and it’s symbols are most effective when it includes and involves people on the fringes. A church that wants to revitalize its centre, should reach out to the fringes of society.
Secondly carrying it on the shoulders required equally divided team effort. People had to walk with each other and in sync with each other to carry it like this. It is the guy that tries to be the lone hero in this passage that dies. Maybe this was also a Philistine feature because you would recall that when the
Philistine army hid behind a lone hero; God send a boy to proof them a point. Jesus said to his disciples:
“Let us…” many times. He asked them what “are you” (plural) going to give the people to eat. Religion becomes a force for good (and sometimes sadly for bad) if it draws from the team effort of a team, not the heroic actions of one individual. Jesus kind of took the spot for that long time ago and does and excellent job at it. A good question to ask ourselves in religion is: What can we do together that we cannot do alone?
Thirdly and oddly, carrying the ark on the shoulders hid the people that carried it and elevated what it stood for. Every day advertisements attempt to trick us in offering us a stage to elevate ourselves above others. Jesus doesn’t always give us what we want but what we need. He offers us an opportunity to hide ourselves and lift something more important than us up with others. It doesn’t sell but boy, does it ever change lives when we give it a go! I bet you all also fantasized how it would feel to become invisible. Join a ministry with the heart of Jesus and you will find out! It’s awesome.
Don’t always step on it; pause and reflect
When something that is supposed to be life giving takes a life, when something that is supposed to grow shrinks; what is the appropriate response? I will tell you what most people do. They simply double their efforts. The results are usually more damage and burn-out and decline and death. David had great leadership here, I don’t know if it was by design or by accident, but he responded in a way we should do more. He stopped. He paused. He reconsidered if his religion is on the right track.
Quite a few times in his life.
He did another thing; he parked his religion with someone not part of it. Not an enemy but an “other”. And only when it was received and judged well by another, did he proceed. It was like David dared to hold up a mirror by testing the effect of his religion on someone not part of it.
I dare you, go to an atheist friend or family member and ask that person in what ways do they think the fact that you are a Christian makes you a better and a worse person. You will be pleasantly surprised by some things they say and you might also be shocked by other things they say but it will have such a good effect on your faith and the way you carry your faith. Jesus did say that we will disagree and clash with people close to us because of our faith. Sometimes it is inevitable but other times it is because we do not carry it right and pausing and reflecting and reconsidering how we practice our religion could really help us to notice and change cause when we are at fault.
Don’t stress over it, enjoy expressing it
There should go a fair amount of thinking and even strategic planning in religion. But religion should also not become a constant obsession. Religion practiced right does not lead to heart-and headaches but to joy and sometimes to reckless expression. In this passage, one man dies because he over focus on religion and not on what it points to. He reaches to provide protection for the ark, an object that tried to remind people that God provides for us. David seemed to have learned a lesson. Because rather than just taking over the role Uzza tried to play, he dances and has a great time. David was a musician. One of his big life roles was to make and enjoy music that glorified God. David embraces his role and leaves the rest up to God. You know this church of ours, the Presbyterian church is in trouble when it comes to numbers. Congregants are getting older on average. We don’t see so many baptisms and Sunday school kids as we used to. Now there is two responses to this situation that I think are not good ones. The one is to ignore it. That would be like David just carrying on whilst Uzza just died.
We need to ask critical questions about our assumptions and the way we carry our faith. If it is still much needed good news to the young people and people from minority groups, why aren’t they attracted to our church anymore? But the other response is to over focus on our religion. To fret about and second guess everything we do. To anxiously acquire every new wagon we see attract people elsewhere in stead of coming up with things for our own unique context. To become rats in an empty race just to get more people and to look impressive from the outside rather than feel invigorated and enriched from the inside. What can you do to help carry the meaning of the cross, of Jesus and what He did and what He is still doing out to people? Express yourself and what you belief. Play the role God calls you for fully and with reckless abandon of your ego. Tell your story to people. Pray that what is in your heart about our community and our church. Not impressive prayers but real prayers. Come do here what you do best and ask the leaders for the opportunity to do so if you feel it isn’t here.
Close
Would you join me? Would you join me in doing something very important to human well-being and flourishing? Would you help me carry the wonderful content of the gospel of Jesus Christ into this community? Would you help me carry the cross in a way that gets to people’s hearts? By carrying it in a way that invites, not exclude, in a way that hides us and highlights the love of God. Let us take time to ask each other very critical questions in love. Not about others but about ourselves. Let us help each other to discover and play our unique roles well.
Because what this religion of ours points to can unlock life, life abundantly.
Amen