Last night we attended a juried recital by a jazz violinist, sweet friend, and superb musician. Her music makes my heart sing. Congratulations on a fine performance, Erika!
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This morning, I’m thinking about symbols. I’m not much for them, at least not compared to reality. For me, a © signifies a more important legal reality, photos cannot replace a person’s face, the actual win is more significant than the trophy. All reality is more far important than whatever represents it.
In the spiritual realm, the words in the Bible, as any words, are symbols representing the truth God actually speaks. The elements of communion are symbols representing the body and blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. In the Old Testament, the Ark of the Covenant was a symbol of God’s presence, and while it didn’t guarantee that He was with them, at least at one point, His people thought that it did.
In 1 Samuel 4, Israel went out to battle their enemy, the Philistines and were defeated. They came back to camp and wondered, “Why has the Lord defeated us today before the Philistines?” In their minds, God is sovereign and had allowed their loss. Clearly, He was not “with” them, which was correct. However, they made the same error over and over; instead of asking God what was wrong or for any direction at all, they took the matter into their own hands. They assumed that since His presence was symbolized by the Ark, the Ark was the missing ingredient. “Let us bring the ark of the covenant of the Lord from Shiloh to us, that when it comes among us it may save us from the hand of our enemies.”
The symbol did encourage them. “When the ark of the covenant of the Lord came into the camp, all Israel shouted so loudly that the earth shook.”
It also scared the Philistines, “When the Philistines heard the noise of the shout, they said, ‘What does the sound of this great shout in the camp of the Hebrews mean?’ Then they understood that the ark of the Lord had come into the camp. So the Philistines were afraid, for they said, ‘God has come into the camp! . . . Woe to us! Who will deliver us from the hand of these mighty gods? These are the gods who struck the Egyptians with all the plagues in the wilderness. Be strong and conduct yourselves like men, you Philistines, that you do not become servants of the Hebrews . . . . Conduct yourselves like men, and fight.’”
So they sucked up their fears and fought. The Israelites were defeated in a very great slaughter and the Philistines captured their symbol, the Ark.
At that, did either side think that God now dwelt in the camp of the Philistines? They must have. At least one Israelite said that, “The glory has departed from Israel” and the Philistines put the Ark into the house where they kept their idol, Dagon.
I wonder what God thinks of such shenanigans. His people’s idea of His presence was no different than their idol-worshiping enemies. Yet in this narrative, the next morning the Philistine idol was tipped over on its face before the Ark. They set it upright, but the next day, it was again tipped, this time its head and hands broken off. The people were struck with tumors and decided to move the Ark to another city, where even worse things happened. They finally sent it back to Israel, realizing that they had somehow offended God. Duh.
I don’t think they really understood His true nature at this point, but I can see from this incident how prone people are to confuse symbols with reality. We do it all the time.
Yet there is a more important lesson here. When I go to battle against any spiritual enemy, God will not allow me to claim a victory if my heart is not right. I might claim His goodness, cling to His promises and other representations of who He is, but that will not take precedence over His ultimate goal for my life. He wants me to be like Jesus, and Himself glorified as a holy God, not one that will tolerate my sin and let me ‘win’ anyway. If I will not turn to Him and seek His grace and strength for my life, but only make a show of religious piety by holding up my Bible and still doing things my own way, then just like that idol, I will fall on my face.
True faith is never in symbols, or even in His words and promises; it is in Him, the One who gave the words. This may sound like hair-splitting, but there is a difference between ignoring what might be wrong in my life and chanting in my prayers, “But You said . . . “ and cleaning up my life because I’ve put all my hope in the One who said it and know that His holiness is more significant than the appearance of me winning.
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