When the Music StopsWhen the Music Stops
Text: 2 Samuel 6:1-19 12.07.2009
Mrs. Hope may have been a next door neighbour for years. She was often sitting with your mother at the kitchen table taking tea and exchanging village news. Yet you never heard your mum call her by her first name, Anne. Mrs. Hope was always Mrs. Hope. Furthermore, Mrs. Hope would never dream of calling your mother anything other than Mrs. Grove. So there they were, friends and neighbours, addressing each other by their surnames.
Calling people Mr. and Mrs. was a mark of respect. People would not consider addressing their GP by their first name. It was simply unthinkable. This formality is almost entirely in the past, although it remains within the school system where children are expected to call their teachers by their surname.
We are now are first name terms with each other. Even our political leaders are addressed by their first names. We refer to our Prime Minister as ‘Gordon’, as if he lived in the house next door to us. The removal of the formalities of address has brought down the barriers that were firmly entrenched between people. By addressing someone by their first name, it signifies that it doesn’t matter whether they have a Ph.D. or whether they are a labourer.
The move away from the social custom of calling people by their surname has been paralleled by a move in Christian spirituality from formality to informality. There was a day when church was a place of supreme sobriety. People came to church in their finest clothes. Women wore hats. People daren’t laugh in church. Clapping was frowned upon. The music was sober. The sermons were severe. People possessed an awe of God that might be described as fear. Prayers were framed with the language of the Authorised Version as God was addressed with words like ‘thee’ and ‘thou’.
Now, even in churches that we might describe as traditional, prayers are spoken in immediate, personal terms. Minister and congregations will enjoy humour in worship without the fear of the roof collapsing on top of them. Women and hats are a thing of the past. Neck ties hang limp in the wardrobe as men opt for open collars. Sermons will often be deeply personal and will touch on areas of immediate interest making connections between the Bible world and our own. I suppose you might say that we are now on first name terms with God.
You may be thinking, “Jason, it’s all very well saying that every person is equal but don’t you think that we’ve lost something in discarding with the formalities of the past?” You have a point. Although I wouldn’t want to go back to people calling each other by their surnames, nor would I want to go back to the austere way of ‘doing church’, the element of respect and reverence has gone missing from our society and the church. We have become ‘palsy-walsy’ with God, calling him Father but neglecting to ‘hallow’ his name.[1] Though our worship may be vibrant it does not give a license to serve up trivial happy-clappy worship that slaps God on the back like an old lost mate.
David learnt how dangerous it is to worship the holy LORD without due care and attention. He discovered that God will not tolerate contemptuous familiarity. David was described as a man after God’s own heart (1 Samuel 13:14). He had relied on the LORD to win victory over Goliath and the Philistines. He had trusted the LORD by not taking the opportunities he had to kill Saul. He was now not only the king of Judah but of the northern tribes of Israel. To top it all off, he had successfully penetrated the defences of Jerusalem, calling it the City of David. David’s first test as king over all Israel came from the Philistines. He won a decisive defeat over them through the LORD, who broke out against the Philistines as waters burst through a weakened dam. In a move to consolidate his political power, he set out to bring the ancient symbol of God’s presence into the newly won city on a hill.
The ark was a sacred chest overlaid with a cover of pure gold with two cherub opposite each other. It had two rings on each side through which two poles were placed in order to carry the ark. These poles were not to be removed. The ark contained the tablet of the Law given to Moses and some manna. The Lord promised to meet Moses between the two angels on the ark lid (Exodus 25:22). The ark went with the people through the years in the wilderness and they came to think that if they had the ark their enemies could not defeat them. The ark became something of a good luck charm guaranteeing God’s presence. They could do whatever they liked and it didn’t matter - so they thought.
The myth was shot through when Eli’s sons were killed in battle and the Philistines captured the ark. This tragedy was amplified as Eli’s daughter-in-law died giving birth to her son. Before she breathed her last she named the boy Ichabod, saying, “The Glory has departed from Israel, for the ark of God has been captured” (1 Samuel 4:22). Though the ark is eventually returned to Israel in her borderlands, the people now know that God’s holy presence upon the ark depends upon their obedience to the Law.
The ark has been in Abinadab’s house for twenty years. Saul has come and gone. David is now king and seeks to place the ark at the centre of national life in his city. The ark will no longer remain on the periphery but will be placed in the heart of the Israel’s capital. The Philistines had returned the ark to Israel on a cart pulled by cows and now David, with thirty thousand young men, placed the ark on a new cart. Uzzah and Ahio, the sons of Abinadab, guide the ark-laden cart towards Jerusalem.
What a celebration! Everyone was really into it. Musical instruments of every kind made melody as they worshipped the LORD with all their might. This was no half-hearted effort. Every sinew and muscle was employed on this great day. The people of Israel had a new king, had defeated the Philistines, had captured Jerusalem, and were now in the process of bringing the LORD ‘home’.
No one quite saw it happen. It turned out that one of the oxen stumbled. Everyone gasped as the cart lurched and the ark tipped precariously. Uzzah instinctively reached out his hand to steady the ark. The power of the LORD that had broken out against the Philistines in victory was now the anger of the LORD breaking out against Uzzah. His body lay slumped in a heap next to the ark. The music stopped. Everyone stared in horror. What on earth had happened here?
David was angry with the LORD. He couldn’t believe that God had done this. Here he was trying to do something nice for the LORD and the LORD goes off and loses his temper. After all Uzzah was only trying to help out.
David had not fully appreciated the LORD’s holiness. Had he not considered that if the ark had only been carried by the poles then there would have been no need for the ark to be steadied? David’s anger turns to fear as he realises how holy the LORD is. He asks, “How can the ark of the LORD ever come to me?”
We feel great sympathy for Uzzah. God’s reaction seems over the top. Yet however unfair the outbreak of God’s anger seemed to David and to us, we cannot escape the fact that God’s holiness has been violated. Uzzah suffers the consequences of it. There is no place for trite, over familiar worship of God.
David leaves the ark in the home of Obed-Edom for three months. Was he in a huff? Was David thinking, “If reaching out your hand to steady a toppling ark is an offence worthy of death, isn’t the task of moving the ark to Jerusalem too perilous for me?” The rift between David and God is serious. Will it be resolved?
There are times when we fall out with God too. We want to hear of God’s grace, mercy, and forgiveness. But when we are confronted by his judgement, anger, and punishment, we lash out and say, “God, you’re not being fair!”
When David sees that the house of Obed-Edom is blessed because the ark of God is with him, he decides that he can’t afford to fall out with the LORD. He needs to have God’s presence and blessing in Jerusalem.
Did David undergo a change of heart? Did he learn lessons from his mistakes? It would seem so. This time nothing is left to chance. The ark is carried by the poles. There will be no more stumbling; no need to rescue the ark from a fall. When the music stopped, David had gone from anger, to fear, and then found the courage to humble himself before the holiness of God. He made sure that even though he offered unrestrained worship by dancing with all his energy, that it was worship that reverenced God. Every six steps a bull and a calf were sacrificed. This was slow, deliberate, and costly worship. As the ark approached Zion, it was hailed with shouts and trumpet blasts. His whole being was involved in worship.
Finally, the ark is laid to rest in the tabernacle and further sacrifices are made. David blesses the people in the name of the LORD Almighty. He then gifts the people with packed lunches and sends them home.
Isn’t it incredible how the worship surrounding the ark’s removal to Jerusalem was marked by exuberant music, dancing, blessing, and food? David’s enthusiasm for worship does not diminish because of the death of Uzzah. Instead, he ensures that his enthusiasm does not denigrate into a familiarity which infringes God’s holiness.
On the one hand, David’s full on worship challenges us to look at our own worship. On the other hand, David’s encounter with the holiness of God cautions us against trivial worship where our familiarity becomes contempt for God’s holiness. Do we throw our voices into singing, our bodies into clapping, and toe tapping? Is blessing and food part of our worship? Is our worship exuberant and reverent? Are we alive to the reality of God’s presence and yet in awe of him?
[1]Joyce Baldwin, 1 and 2 Samuel, TYNDALE O. T. COMMENTARIES (Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press, 1988), p. 208.
|
|
 Printable Version |