When the Holy Box Went to War

Do you know what the Israelites had? A box. A beautiful golden box, called the ark. It was the special sign that God was with them, near them, close as breath. He had walked them out of Egypt, and through the sea, and across the long dry wilderness, and never once left them behind.

This happened in the days when Samuel, the boy who heard his name in the dark, was growing up. And the people had stopped listening to God.

One day they went to fight their enemies, the Philistines. And they lost. So many of them fell. The soldiers came limping home, sore and afraid, and they asked each other, "Why? Why did God let this happen?"

Instead of turning back to God, instead of crying out to him, instead of longing for him, they had an idea.

"Let's go get the box," they said. "Let's carry the golden box into battle. Then God will have to make us win."

They wanted what God could do for them, but they had stopped wanting God. They thought if they could just hold him in their hands, they could make him do whatever they wished. Like a lucky charm. Like a magic stone you rub for a wish.

So they carried the holy box to war. And they shouted so loud the ground shook.

But no one can carry God around like a charm. No hands are big enough to grab him.

The Israelites lost again. Worse this time. And the Philistines carried the golden box away.

They had tried to use God, and now it looked like they had lost him completely. Their hands were empty, and their hearts were emptier still.

Yet even in enemy country, God did not need anyone to rescue him.

The Philistines set the box beside their own god, a stone statue named Dagon. In the morning they found Dagon tumbled down flat on his face. They stood him back up. The next morning, flat again, broken to pieces. Wherever the box went, trouble followed, until the Philistines cried, "Take it away! Send it back!"

So they set it on a cart pulled by two cows, and the cows walked it straight back home, mooing the whole long way, as if God himself were steering them.

Nobody could control him. Not the people who carried him, and not the enemies who captured him. He would not be a trinket in anyone's pocket.

And that is the ache hidden in this story. We cannot grab God and bend him to our wishes. We cannot box him up and keep him. So how could we ever, ever get close to him?

We couldn't.

So he came to us.

One day, long after that golden box was gone, God would come, not in a box at all, but as a baby. A baby with small warm fingers you really could hold. His name would be Immanuel, which means God with us. A friend who came near because he wanted to, because he loved you, because he would not stay far away from the children he was bringing home.

The golden box rolled home on its creaking cart, and Israel watched it come with wondering eyes. Soon they would ask God for something else they thought they needed. But God was saving a better gift for his people: a King with a heartbeat, a King you could hold, a King who would carry them all the way home.