Symbols of Worship

Don: We’ve discussed the difference between the “fact-based” worship favored by our religions, and the “spirit-based” worship demanded by Jesus. Unfortunately, disagreement over the “facts” leads to religious and sectarian conflict and violence. The “facts” often relate to worldly physical objects, which risk falling prey to the human tendency to adopt them not just as symbols of worship but as objects of worship in themselves. The Second Commandment prohibits it, but it happens anyway.

Why is it then that (as scripture shows) God took this great risk in giving to Man symbols of worship, which Man was then likely to pervert to his own ends? Many of these are objects that can be seen or touched or otherwise perceived by the senses. In the Protestant ethic, the scriptures—the word of God—tend to be made an object of worship, but Jesus said:

You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; it is these that testify about Me; and you are unwilling to come to Me so that you may have life. (John 5:39-40)

Jesus was pointing away from the scriptures as an object of veneration and worship and instead toward himself. We refer to “the Holy Bible,” but it is Jesus who is holy.

The ancient Israelites came to worship the ark of the Covenant as an object, and took it with them into battle against the Philistines as a talisman, a good-luck charm, to protect them. It did the opposite, and not only were the Philistines victorious in battle, they also captured the ark itself. But it brought them bad luck too, so they decided to return it:

Now the ark of the Lord had been in the country of the Philistines seven months. And the Philistines called for the priests and the diviners, saying, “What shall we do with the ark of the Lord? Tell us how we shall send it to its place.” They said, “If you send away the ark of the God of Israel, do not send it empty; but you shall surely return to Him a guilt offering. Then you will be healed and it will be known to you why His hand is not removed from you.” Then they said, “What shall be the guilt offering which we shall return to Him?” And they said, “Five golden tumors and five golden mice according to the number of the lords of the Philistines, for one plague was on all of you and on your lords. So you shall make likenesses of your tumors and likenesses of your mice that ravage the land, and you shall give glory to the God of Israel; perhaps He will ease His hand from you, your gods, and your land. Why then do you harden your hearts as the Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened their hearts? When He had severely dealt with them, did they not allow the people to go, and they departed? Now therefore, take and prepare a new cart and two milch cows on which there has never been a yoke; and hitch the cows to the cart and take their calves home, away from them. Take the ark of the Lord and place it on the cart; and put the articles of gold which you return to Him as a guilt offering in a box by its side. Then send it away that it may go. Watch, if it goes up by the way of its own territory to Beth-shemesh, then He has done us this great evil. But if not, then we will know that it was not His hand that struck us; it happened to us by chance.”

Then the men did so, and took two milch cows and hitched them to the cart, and shut up their calves at home. They put the ark of the Lord on the cart, and the box with the golden mice and the likenesses of their tumors. And the cows took the straight way in the direction of Beth-shemesh; they went along the highway, lowing as they went, and did not turn aside to the right or to the left. And the lords of the Philistines followed them to the border of Beth-shemesh.

Now the people of Beth-shemesh were reaping their wheat harvest in the valley, and they raised their eyes and saw the ark and were glad to see it. The cart came into the field of Joshua the Beth-shemite and stood there where there was a large stone; and they split the wood of the cart and offered the cows as a burnt offering to the Lord. The Levites took down the ark of the Lord and the box that was with it, in which were the articles of gold, and put them on the large stone; and the men of Beth-shemesh offered burnt offerings and sacrificed sacrifices that day to the Lord. When the five lords of the Philistines saw it, they returned to Ekron that day.

These are the golden tumors which the Philistines returned for a guilt offering to the Lord: one for Ashdod, one for Gaza, one for Ashkelon, one for Gath, one for Ekron; and the golden mice, according to the number of all the cities of the Philistines belonging to the five lords, both of fortified cities and of country villages. The large stone on which they set the ark of the Lord is a witness to this day in the field of Joshua the Beth-shemite.

He struck down some of the men of Beth-shemesh because they had looked into the ark of the Lord. He struck down of all the people, 50,070 men, and the people mourned because the Lord had struck the people with a great slaughter. The men of Beth-shemesh said, “Who is able to stand before the Lord, this holy God? And to whom shall He go up from us?” So they sent messengers to the inhabitants of Kiriath-jearim, saying, “The Philistines have brought back the ark of the Lord; come down and take it up to you.” (1 Samuel 4:1-121)

The ark contained the stone tablet inscribed with the law—the Ten Commandments, a pot full of manna, and Aaron’s rod, among other things. These were symbolic, respectively, of God’s justice and righteousness, his grace, and his creative power. No-one was allowed to see the ark except for the high priests, and even they could see it only once a year and only through an obscuring veil created by clouds of incense, reminiscent of God’s statement to Moses:

“You cannot see My face, for no man can see Me and live!” (Exodus 33:20)

As the Israelites moved through the desert in the exodus, very strict and specific rules applied to the movement of the ark. It had to be covered with three blankets. The priests carried the ark using poles thrust through rings on the sides of the ark, since they must not touch it directly. All other people had to stay about a kilometer away from it (the same distance, incidentally, that one may travel on a Sabbath day).

But back to the story: After its return by the Philistines, the ark lay neglected in someone’s house for nearly 20 years, until King David decided to move it to its rightful place in the sanctuary:

Now David again gathered all the chosen men of Israel, thirty thousand. And David arose and went with all the people who were with him to Baale-judah, to bring up from there the ark of God which is called by the Name, the very name of the Lord of hosts who is enthroned above the cherubim. They placed the ark of God on a new cart that they might bring it from the house of Abinadab which was on the hill; and Uzzah and Ahio, the sons of Abinadab, were leading the new cart. So they brought it with the ark of God from the house of Abinadab, which was on the hill; and Ahio was walking ahead of the ark. Meanwhile, David and all the house of Israel were celebrating before the Lord with all kinds of instruments made of fir wood, and with lyres, harps, tambourines, castanets and cymbals.

But when they came to the threshing floor of Nacon, Uzzah reached out toward the ark of God and took hold of it, for the oxen nearly upset it. And the anger of the Lord burned against Uzzah, and God struck him down there for his irreverence; and he died there by the ark of God. David became angry because of the Lord’s outburst against Uzzah, and that place is called Perez-uzzah to this day. So David was afraid of the Lord that day; and he said, “How can the ark of the Lord come to me?” And David was unwilling to move the ark of the Lord into the city of David with him; but David took it aside to the house of Obed-edom the Gittite. Thus the ark of the Lord remained in the house of Obed-edom the Gittite three months, and the Lord blessed Obed-edom and all his household. (2 Samuel 6:1-11)

(God’s anger was kindled against Uzzah for his familiar handling of the ark as though it were his box, containing a God who was therefore under Uzzah’s control. It is our perpetual desire to put God in a box where we can control him and harness his powers for our own ends. This is fatal religion and fatal worship, as Uzzah and his friends were to discover. We are in God’s possession, not he in ours. He does not need our help. He does not need us to prevent him from falling.)

Now it was told King David, saying, “The Lord has blessed the house of Obed-edom and all that belongs to him, on account of the ark of God.” David went and brought up the ark of God from the house of Obed-edom into the city of David with gladness. And so it was, that when the bearers of the ark of the Lord had gone six paces, he sacrificed an ox and a fatling. And David was dancing before the Lord with all his might, and David was wearing a linen ephod. [In other words, David, King of Israel, was dancing wildly and practically naked.] So David and all the house of Israel were bringing up the ark of the Lord with shouting and the sound of the trumpet.

Then it happened as the ark of the Lord came into the city of David that Michal the daughter of Saul looked out of the window and saw King David leaping and dancing before the Lord; and she despised him in her heart.

So they brought in the ark of the Lord and set it in its place inside the tent which David had pitched for it; and David offered burnt offerings and peace offerings before the Lord. When David had finished offering the burnt offering and the peace offering, he blessed the people in the name of the Lord of hosts. Further, he distributed to all the people, to all the multitude of Israel, both to men and women, a cake of bread and one of dates and one of raisins to each one. Then all the people departed each to his house.

But when David returned to bless his household, Michal the daughter of Saul came out to meet David and said, “How the king of Israel distinguished himself today! He uncovered himself today in the eyes of his servants’ maids as one of the foolish ones shamelessly uncovers himself!” So David said to Michal, “It was before the Lord, who chose me above your father and above all his house, to appoint me ruler over the people of the Lord, over Israel; therefore I will celebrate before the Lord. I will be more lightly esteemed than this and will be humble in my own eyes, but with the maids of whom you have spoken, with them I will be distinguished.” Michal the daughter of Saul had no child to the day of her death. (2 Samuel 6:12-23)

The need to turn symbols into objects of worship is thus a common tendency in Man, as can be seen in all religions over all times. Why is this? Why does God take the risk of giving us the symbols, knowing what we are likely to do with them? What might prevent us from doing so?

David: The symbols in the ark—justice, grace, creation—are good things. It puzzles me that God would seek to keep us nearly a mile away from them!

Donald: God seems to appreciate order, or to hate chaos (which amount to the same thing). Timing, sizing, and so on are specified in detail and thus are clearly important to God (think of Noah’s Ark, for example).

Kiran: Perhaps in our fallen state we cannot access God’s justice, grace, and creativity without going through the middlemen—the priests, who are themselves representative of Jesus Christ. Perhaps it is telling us that we can only access God’s goodness through Jesus.

Anonymous: Perhaps they were intended, because of our limited understanding of God, to show us his key attributes of grace, mercy, and creation. Once we grasp that, then they have served their purpose and can and should be dropped. But instead, we cling to them.

Donald: Because we cannot see God, we have symbols to represent him, but then we tend to worship the symbol rather than God.

Don: Evidently, we need to make God in our own image—always have and always will. We can’t grasp him in the abstract. We have to project him in some way onto or into an object. Even to say “him” is an objectification.

Chris: We want to control the attributes of God that are symbolized in the contents of the ark, but that is not their purpose. It would do no good to restrict access to them in order to thwart our human desire to usurp God’s attributes for our own ends. We seem to have a need to consider who deserves to have access to them—we need to judge, and we tend to judge partly on the basis of worship rituals, as Michal did to King David and his singing and dancing. It’s God’s job to determine what’s acceptable worship, not ours.

David: If the ark was so important to God, why was it so soon lost to history?

Don: In his ministry, Jesus sought to undo such symbolism. For each of us, there is a time and place for symbols of worship. Often it is when we are at a spiritually immature stage. But the symbols tend to become perverted over time. Jesus sought to undo the sacrificial system and its symbols, and to redirect worship toward God himself. God sees some value in the symbols, but it is a temporary, not eternal, value. Imagine how the ark would be venerated today if it were to be found!

Donald: There used to be much more formality and pattern in Seventh Day Adventist worship. Today’s relative informality is discomfiting to older worshipers.

Don: So there is an example of value in symbols. It’s not that they have no value, but we have to understand the limits of their value and be prepared to abandon them when their value is all used up instead of turning them into objects of worship in their own right.

Major Christian denominations to this day recognize bread and wine as symbols of the body and blood of Jesus. The Catholics invoke the symbols at every mass, the Jehovah’s Witnesses do it once a year at their Memorial meeting, and the SDA does it four times a year. The SDA adds a symbol the others don’t: Foot-washing, which Jesus demonstrated at the Last Supper along with the bread and wine. Many people don’t like the foot-washing because of its hygienic aspects, so its historical symbolic significance has faded. There are plenty of other ways to demonstrate humility and service to others—does it really have to be foot-washing?

Anonymous: The significance of these symbols is to serve as a reminder. Jesus told us to do these things in remembrance of him. They are reminders, not symbols of worship. So is the Sabbath: It reminds us, every week, to seek a deeper understanding of God. King David found it in the symbols of the ark as he brought it home. It changed his attitude toward God and led to his exuberant worship. A similar thing happened to Job.

Donald: Are symbols the way a generation shares its story with the next? Photographs have become essential to today’s generations for that purpose. Older generations had to make do with passing on other symbols, such as a father’s beloved tool set.

David: Photographs are a form or symbol of remembrance. But it’s interesting how symbols can usurp the reality they symbolize, as happened to a mountain biker who was swept up in a running herd of elk but lost the true magic of the moment because he had objectified the moment as a photograph—and realized he had forgotten to turn on his helmet camera:

When the agony of missing the shot trumps the joy of the experience worth shooting, the adventure athlete (climber, surfer, extreme skier) reveals himself to be something else: a filmmaker, a brand, a vessel for the creation of content. He used to just do the thing—plan the killer trip or trick and then complete it, with panache. Maybe a photographer or film crew tagged along, and afterward there’d be a slide show at community centers and high-school gyms, or an article in a magazine. Now the purpose of the trip or trick is the record of it. Life is footage. (http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/09/22/camera)

Kiran: We value the symbols of worship more than the reality of a relationship with God.

Jay: There is a fine line between them, though. God gave very specific instructions regarding the ark and the sanctuary and the sacrificial rituals and so on. If we stay on that side of the line, there should be no problem, yet the line is fine and easily overstepped. In the process, the symbol begins to blur and seems to us to take on the properties of the God it was only intended to symbolize.

Moses came down from the mountain with a laundry list of instructions for the Israelites yet it has not seemed to withstand the test of time. The instructions said nothing about singing and dancing in an ephod, yet it turns out that was deemed appropriate and acceptable to by God in King David’s case. The line between symbol and reality, between what is acceptable and what is not, is very fine.

Don: We need to get to the bottom of this. People are prepared to die and to kill for the sake of their symbols. Perhaps Donald’s point about generational differences helps explain how symbols wax and wane over time. In future meetings we shall discuss the Sabbath and communion and so on in light of all these issues and comments.

Donald: We gather weekly as a group of individuals who are striving and perhaps starting to understand God. Are we too self-focused? Have we lost sight of worship? America is so self-absorbed. Gideon’s Bible is rapidly disappearing from hotel rooms. What is replacing it?

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