2. The Ark of the Testimony

They shall make an ark of acacia wood; two cubits and a half shall be its length, a cubit and a half its breadth, and a cubit and a half its height. And you shall overlay it with pure gold, within and without shall you overlay it, and you shall make upon it a molding of gold round about. And you shall cast four rings of gold for it and put them on its four feet, two rings on the one side of it, and two rings on the other side of it. You shall make poles of acacia wood, and overlay them with gold. And you shall put the poles into the rings on the sides of the ark, to carry the ark by them. The poles shall remain in the rings of the ark; they shall not be taken from it. And you shall put into the ark the testimony which I shall give you. Then you shall make a mercy seat of pure gold; two cubits and a half shall be its length, and a cubit and a half its breadth, and you shall make two cherubim of gold; of hammered work shall you make them, on the two ends of the mercy seat. Make one cherub on the one end, and one cherub on the other end; of one piece with the mercy seat shall you make the cherubim on its two ends. The cherubim shall spread out their wings above, overshadowing the mercy seat with their wings, their faces one to another; toward the mercy seat shall the faces of the cherubim be. And you shall put the mercy seat on the top of  the ark; and in the ark you shall put the testimony that I shall give you. There I will meet with you, and from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim that are upon the ark of the testimony, I will speak with you of all that I will give you in commandment for the people of Israel.

The inmost thing in Israel's tabernacle was the ark, the point of actual meeting with God's Word. And the inmost of a live church, or mind, is the part which hears the Word of God as commandment, applied to life, as the living thought of God. And so, as the first section of Exodus 25 on the tabernacle described the materials needed that the Lord might "dwell in their midst," this second section on the ark concludes, "There I will meet with you, and ... I will speak with you of all that I will give you in commandment for the people of Israel."

The tabernacle is a "tent of meeting," where we meet the Living God. "I will meet with you, to speak there to you. There I will meet with the people of Israel, and it shall be sanctified by my glory; I will consecrate the tent of meeting" (Ex 29:42-43). The effective center of the meeting here described, was the ark with its testimony within, that is, the Word or Truth of God in its power.

This is the tent of meeting, the meeting of the Divine transcendent Other and the human mind. For some this meeting means an experience of ecstacy, a heavenly escape from the bounds of the finite and of this world. For Israel it meant the mystery of the divine Word that called them to live the life of God's pure Will in the world, accepting the limits of the human mind and will. The image for that transcendent Otherness is the pair of cherubim. The image for the Presence of God's Word here in this world is the chest of wood, the ark, with God's commandments within. And the image for the mystery that brings these two together, is the gold, or love.

The first to be mentioned is the ark, the specific symbol of God's Presence. In later times the ark dwelled invisible behind the veil of the holy of holies. But early records show the ark going ahead of the people on the march "to seek out a resting place for them" (Num. 10:33). It was when the priests bearing the ark entered the Jordan that the waters parted for the people to pass through (Josh 3:15). It was the ark that devastated the Philistines (I Sam. 5). And it was when Uzzah, unauthorized and unprepared, put his hand on the ark that he died, and David feared to bring it into Jerusalem (II Sam. 6). In Israel's tradition, the power within it was God's presence in the ten commandments, the most important testimony to God's Word.

It is when we hear the Lord's commandments in order to do them that the power of the Lord to save and bless becomes real. John's statement of this is the same truth that was represented by the manifest Divine Presence in the ark of the testimony: "He who has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me . . . and I will love him and manifest myself to him" (John 14:21). The ark commands the attention not of the natural level of a person, which could almost be identified, so to speak, as a sort of immortal animal, but of the inmost, spiritual level which knows the Lord and draws support and guidance consciously or unconsciously from God.

The ark, like the frame of the tabernacle, was of acacia wood. This desert hardwood was not a fruit tree, valued for the food it gave, but valued for its own sake. It is the type of mind which is strong in resolve, from the knowledge that the Lord has conquered evil. The dimensions of the ark, related to the numbers five and three, symbolize this knowledge of the Divine protection in all the length and breadth and depth of human life.

The next element mentioned is the gold, the essence of goodness, or love itself, the connection between the human and the Divine. The wood was to be overlaid with gold, both "from the house side," as the Hebrew says, and from the outside. The ark was gold, then, as well as wood. The commandments were not to be seen as arbitrary human rules, nor as ways for us to set up an account to gain reward. Commandments are not always verbal rules at all. The symbolic power of an action or of a concrete example speaks aloud in the history of Israel, in God's act to free Israel from Egypt, in the life of Jesus, or in the parables of the Bible. The commandments are the living of God's will, the enjoyment of the Presence of the Lord, letting the Lord's love and mercy be the center and power of life.

The rings and staves were the same combination of wood and gold, of human and Divine. They were to carry that Word of God wherever the people went, into all circumstances and states of life. The rings themselves are the joining of good with truth. The definite command that the poles never be removed from the rings underlines the constant readiness for application to life.

The cover of the ark was of pure gold. This is the "mercy seat," the word for covering over sin or guilt. It is the word "forgive" in Psalm 79:

Do not remember against us the iniquities of our forefathers;
let thy compassion come speedily to meet us, for we are brought very low.
Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of thy name;
deliver us, and forgive our sins, for thy name's sake! Ps. 79:8-9

It is the word "atonement" in Israel's Yom Kippur, or Day of Atonement, one of the most sacred of Israel's yearly solemn festivals or "meetings" with God. It is this mercy, this Divine forgiveness, this awareness of God's pure goodness with no evil at all, not remembering past sins against us, which overlies the Word of God's commandments as we take them home to our hearts.

Finally, the two cherubim were of pure gold alone, Cherubim in the ancient Near East were great winged guardian figures, part human, part animal, appearing in carvings on the thrones of kings or at the entrances of palaces or temples. Ezekiel gives a detailed description. In his vision they were

Others of these creatures had the body of an ox or lion or bull. The cherubim in Solomon's temple were said to be ten cubits (or about fifteen feet) high (1 Kings 6:23). In one description of the ark, the Lord is seen as enthroned "on the cherubim" (I Samuel 4:4). In the symbolism of Psalm 18 they are associated with the wind,

Ezekiel saw them in his vision of God enthroned in the temple. The seraphim of Isaiah's vision of God are probably also these numinous guardian beings (Isa. 6). In Revelation 4 to 6, they are around the throne of God in heaven.

Ezekiel, Isaiah, and Revelation all suggest the mysterious nature of these living creatures, seen indeed, but seen only in vision at the boundary of human sight and where God's Presence or heaven begins. In Genesis 3, after the man and woman had made their choice to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the LORD God sent them "forth from the garden of Eden . . . and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life" (Gen. 3:23-24). The choice to go the way of human reason, persuasion, and rationalization, is followed by the protection of the way of return to Eden, lest the tree of life be profaned and humankind destroy itself. The cherubim are these mysterious and totally good protecting beings, guardians of the transcendent.

The cherubim are "of one piece with the mercy seat." They spread their wings "above, overshadowing the mercy seat with their wings" of mercy and protection, of support, and of power to rise to the heights. Their faces, turned one to the other, and to the mercy seat itself, speak of love to the neighbor and to God, the Divine Goodness from which they spring.

The inmost of the human mind, that edge of conscious awareness and unconscious creative power, of earthly beings and the Divine, is imaged in the ark with the

cover of mercy and the cherubim above. Here we meet I the Lord. The Lord commands us to prepare the tent of meeting and the ark, in order to meet with us. The inmost mind is not the whole of human awareness. All life depends on God, and the Divine is received in many different ways in different states of being, both consciously and unaware. Yet, that the Divine Presence be received at all, and life on earth continue, there must be somewhere the awareness of that Presence here described.

It is a familiar religious truth that the Presence of the Lord and the awareness of heavenly reality, are not rewards of human intelligence or study. They are gifts given in a setting of trust and mutual love. It is true again that for adults innocent trust and love do not feel entirely natural, but come from the Lord's goodness. Divine goodness, received consciously, is Divine mercy. Such trust and love are the cherubim. "There I will meet with you, and from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim that are upon the ark of the testimony, I will speak with you of all that I will give you in commandment for the people of Israel."

The offerings for the tabernacle symbolized the wealth already there within the deep levels of the human mind. The ark of the testimony symbolizes the contact with the Other. This account in Exodus speaks to us of the transcendent power of each reality imaged in the symbols, the gold, the blue, the linen and black wool, and all the materials within, the ark and cherubim, as present now as at any time of ancient origin.

Sit quietly a moment and ask the Lord to be with you as you quiet your mind and prepare to turn to the Word of God.

Read again Exodus 25:10-22 with your mind open to hear it as God's Word to you.

let your mind turn to one commandment you hear the Lord speaking to you,Thou shalt love the LORD with all thy heartThou shalt love thy neighbor as thy self Honor they father and thy motherwhatever one it is that comes to you. And now, in your mind, take the tough strength of fine grained acacia wood and make an ark to put the commandment in, a functional, strong wooden chest, with rings, always ready to take that commandment with you as you go in life, to take in intact, that nothing weaken it or destroy its sacredness. I feel the power of that commandment as you let it go with you as you visualize yourself doing what you do in your home, at work, and in the street.

Now take pure gold, of pure love, and cover the strength of the ark of that commandment with mercy, turning your mind to the Lord's goodness going with you, to the Lord's love as the strength of your keeping that commandment, giving the commandment the power of love to be accomplished, and see the Lord's mercy go with you with its power in your home, at work, and in the street.

And now take the pure gold of that cover of mercy and visualize its shining strength form a beautiful, living, winged, protective figure on each end of the cover of mercy, on the edge, the limit, where your ark ends and Heaven begins, and see the power of the hosts of Heaven go with you as you move in the strength of that commandment in your home, at work, and in the street.

Lord, thank you that your mysterious Presence is revealed not to the subtleties of intellect, but to each one who turns in simplicity of heart to know your will, to do it. Thank you, Lord. Amen.