DAY 96

CAN TAKE CARE OF HIMSELF

1 Samuel 4, 5 & 6 and Luke 9:1 - 17

Yesterday I indicated that we would be reading some amazing stories in 1^st and 2^nd Samuel; today we have just that. The Israelites are battling against the Philistines and losing. They get the idea to take the Ark into battle. On the surface you might think that this makes perfect sense, but there is a rub, they have not been staying connected to God. Think back to the story of Eli and his sons and how they have sinned against the Lord. Bringing the Ark into battle when they are not following God is akin to them thinking they can control God. They think they can just “pull the Ark out of Tent” and get what they want, as if God and Ark are some sort of magic charm. The result is the death of thirty thousand and the loss of the Ark!

What happens next is one of my favorite stories of the Bible. The Ark gets “parked” next to the god Dagon. The Philistine god, Dagon, is a mere stone carving. The Philistines instinctively know this fact, that is why they leave Dagon with the Ark. But the Ark is the Ark of the Living God. The next day Dagon is face down and missing his limbs! The story goes on from there, God basically “fights for Himself” forcing the Philistines to return the Ark. I love the contrast between the stone lifeless god of Dagon and the Living God.

We don’t need to protect God. There is an old story about a newly ordained priest having just celebrating Holy Eucharist. He is carefully cleaning the crumbs of the just consecrated Holy Communion off the paten (the plate the bread is on) and then meticulously cleaning the corporal (the cloth the paten sits on). This newly minted priest is going to excruciating detail. Finally, from a pew he hears an elderly priest say, “Father, God is big enough to take care of himself.” It’s true: We don’t need to protect God.

We see this in Jesus don’t we. His teaching, His miracles, we are getting so use to reading about them that they appear almost common place. If we pause for a moment and think about them, they are anything but.

In this week after Easter, the Risen Christ proclaims that there is nothing that can defeat God – and with His supreme power we read today how He takes the time to feed 5,000 people and empower His followers. Sometimes we can get discouraged as the challenges of life press upon us, today is a good day to remember that the God we serve is all powerful and amazing, and wants to be deeply connected to us.