The lost Ark
My soul longs, indeed it faints
For the courts of the Lord. Psalm 84:2
Read Jeremiah 3:14—17
If the Ark contained the stone tablets on which God himself had written with his own hand (or was it Moses?) his ten key commands to his people,[1] I can think of nothing more precious. Surely they should never be lost. If the sins of God’s people were sprinkled on the front of it in blood to make atonement so that they could have life with God,[2] how could they do without it? How then could they live as the people of God? Yet I have lived without the Ark all my life. And I have life with God. That is because Jesus came up to Jerusalem. His blood was shed for the sin of the world.[3] He turned the whole sacred business of the Ark into a promise, admittedly an amazing promise, but nevertheless, a sketch and a shadow of the real thing. The real thing was what Jesus did. That is the life-giving reality for all people.
Prayer
Gracious Father of all the peoples of all the earth, I thank you for the way you spoke, first to Israel for the sake of the world, and, ultimately, to me. I thank you that you made the way for sinners who had either neglected the commands you spoke or had broken them, or both. You have made the way for sinners, otherwise lost and helpless and fruitless, to be made one with you. You have made atonement. You patterned it in Israel. You did it finally for the world in Jesus. He made the way for the nations to flow to God. For your loving, saving work in Jesus, I thank you. For locating me where I am among the nations, where I can live my life with you, I thank you. Though the Ark was lost, I am not.
[1]Exodus 34:28
[2] Leviticus 16:14—17
[3] John 1:29