Seeker-Sensitive Ark-Bearing

The first part of 1 Chronicles 13, by quoting some highlights, can be summarized as follows: “David conferred with each of his officers, the commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds. He then said to the whole assembly of Israel, ‘If it seems good to you and if it is the will of the LORD our God, let us send word far and wide to the rest of our brothers …. Let us bring the ark of our God back to us, ….’ The whole assembly agreed to do this, because it seemed right to all the people. … They moved the ark of God from Abinadab’s house on a new cart, with Uzzah and Ahio guiding it. … When they came to the threshing floor of Kidon, Uzzah reached out his hand to steady the ark, because the oxen stumbled. The LORD’s anger burned against Uzzah, and He struck him down because he had put his hand on the ark. So he did there before God.” (verses 1-4, 7, 9-10, NIV) Then in chapter 15, we read, “[David] prepared a place for the ark of God and pitched a tent for it. Then David said, ‘No one but the Levites may carry the ark of God, because the LORD chose them to carry the ark of the LORD and to minister before Him forever.’ … [David] called together the descendants of Aaron and the Levites: ….” He summoned their chiefs and “said to them, ‘You are the heads of the Levitical families; you and your fellow Levites are to consecrate yourselves and bring up the ark of the LORD, the God of Israel, to the place I have prepared for it. It was because you, the Levites, did not bring it up the first time that the LORD our God broke our in anger against us. We did not inquire of Him about how to do it in the prescribed way.’” (verses 1-2, 4, 11-13, NIV, my emphasis added)

When preparing this exhortation, I was intrigued to observe that, in I Chronicles 13, we are told specifically that “David conferred with each of his officers” (v. 1) about bringing up the ark of the covenant and that “The whole assembly agreed to do this, because it seemed right to all the people” (v. 4). Before noticing that, I had thought of pretending to read the passage something like this, “David desired to bring the ark of the covenant to Jerusalem. So he ordered that a poll be taken of those people within a particular demographic range to determine the most popular and effective way to transport a sacred covenantal ark. The results of that study showed that most people between the ages of 15 and 55 felt most inspired and motivated whenever they observed a covenantal ark traveling on a cart being pulled by a team of oxen. … And, as you know, the results were tragic.”

The idea being, of course, to ultimately show that God was not displeased with just what was done, even with the supposed good intentions, but how it was being done –- that the focus of our worship should be more than what we’re doing or why, but also how. And even though the irreverence with its consequence was most clearly exhibited by one individual, the corporate body still bore responsibility. But there is no need to misread the text; for the actual Scripture Itself seems to hint already at the correlation between disaster and seeker-sensitive ark-bearing.