Year 6, Day 286: 1 Chronicles 13-14

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Obedience

• Obedience: Genuine and satisfying obedience comes out of our identity.  Our true identity comes only from our Father.

The story of Uzzah is one of my favorite teaching stories in the whole of the Old Testament.  If you want to read about the rest of 1 Chronicles 13-14, I would recommend clicking on the theological commentary in the link above.  Today, I am going to focus on Uzzah.

Why do I love the story of Uzzah?  I love it because I revel in spiritual paradox.  I love reading a story that is designed to make you feel one way and then realizing that the point of the story is opposite of how I feel!  Jesus teaches using paradox all the time in the New Testament, so I think that this is a dynamic that we are supposed to feel.

Where is the paradox?  Well, when we read about Uzzah, it sounds like Uzzah is just trying to help.  He is following along with the ark.  The oxen stumble.  Uzzah doesn’t want the ark to fall, to he reaches out and braces it to prevent it from falling.  Ecause he touches the ark, he dies.  David gets mad, and it is really easy to sympathize with David.  After all, Uzzah was just trying to care for the ark!

The problem is that to side with David also means that we are angry with God because we feel that He is unjust.  But we know that God is never unjust.  So why we emotionally sympathize with David, we know logically speaking that we are wrong.

Remember that God had already told the Hebrew people how to move the ark.  Levites were supposed to stick poles through the loops on the edges of the ark and carry it on the long poles so that nobody needed to touch it ever.  If people were carrying it, if one of them stumbled, the rest could easily lower their end and rest the ark on the ground!  However, when David moves the cart he is not obedient.  He has a cart pulled by oxen moving the ark.  Uzzah dies not because he has bad motivation but because David isn’t obedient.

What can we learn today?  We need to be obedient.  When God gives an order, we need to humbly submit and follow directions.  Obedience is such a simple concept, yet we find it difficult to put into practice.

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