The Irreverence

One of the clearest themes that have emerged in our study of gospel character throughout 1 and 2 Samuel is the necessity of God’s presence in our lives. In the Old Testament, the ark was the special, holy place where God chose to manifest his presence among his people. It stood in the innermost room in the tabernacle—the Holy of Holies—where only the high priest could enter once a year to offer sacrifice. This is what David, now king, longed for. This passage reveals three lessons about God’s presence: (1) our pursuit, (2) the problem, and (3) our provision.

Our Pursuit of God’s Presence

Israel had been at war with the Philistines, and in that conflict the ark had been lost. Even though the Philistines eventually sent it back, it had remained for decades on the outskirts of Jerusalem in a remote place called Kiriath-Jearim. When David became king, he had established Jerusalem as his capital and brought the tabernacle back. Now, he wanted the ark there as well. On one level, David wanted God to be central to his people, society, and culture. But more personally, David says in Psalm 27, “One thing I ask of the LORD, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple.” In other words, David knew that if he didn’t have a deep, intimate relationship with God, he wasn’t going to make it in life—or as king.

Why was the ark so significant? Though God is omnipresent, he had chosen to attach himself to the ark as a representation of his immediate presence and glory. So David knew that he needed the ark if he was going to know God intimately. He also knew this wouldn’t happen on his own terms. What does this mean? It’s one thing to believe in God but another thing entirely to know him in a soulful way that actually shapes your life. Merely knowing in your head that God loves you will never provide the foundation you need to endure the valleys of life. Many people say they know God is loving and gracious, but they don’t delight in him in a way that actually reorders and changes how they think and live. Their lives remain shaped more by worldly priorities, relationships, and security than by delight in him. Only when his approval and love are more real to you than those of a significant other—or when knowing him is deeper, richer, and more secure than your own desires, needs, or security—will you be able to say, Money and relationships matter, but they’re not my identity, so I will do the right thing. That’s what it looks like to live out of real intimacy with God.

If you are easily undone by loneliness, crushed by criticism, or shattered by failures, then God’s love may not yet be as real or personal to you as it needs to be. His kavod glory speaks of his weightiness. What is most weighty in your life becomes what everything else revolves around. David knew that if he truly had intimacy with God, he would have a joy that was weighty too—one that continually grows deeper, stronger, and steadier regardless of circumstance. That is why he says, I want to gaze on your beauty and see your face—David needed God for God. Only then could he become who he was meant to be.

Question 1: What might your disappointments, daydreams, anxieties, or reactions to criticism reveal about what is most “weighty” or shaping in your life right now?

The Problem of God’s Presence

When David gathers Israel to bring the ark to Jerusalem, they place it on a cart. When the ark falls, Uzzah instinctively reaches out to steady it and is struck down. On the surface, it seems like he was trying to do a noble thing. But God had given clear instructions for handling the ark—including that no one was to touch it—which were ignored. The real issue went deeper than mere rule-breaking. When Moses describes how to approach God through the ark, he says, in effect, Do this so you will know there is no God like our God—so you’ll see how glorious and weighty and beautiful he is. To forget these rules was to forget who God is: holy, weighty, and glorious. The ark revealed that God is holy and that sin has created a chasm between him and his people that even sincerity or effort cannot cross. You can’t come to him on your own terms. He must first come to you. Uzzah doesn’t understand how deep the chasm between a holy God and sinful people really is—so much so that God would rather have the ark touch the soil than Uzzah’s hand. The text refers to Uzzah’s act as irreverence. Similarly, our irreverence—our inability to see the chasm—is revealed in the ways we try to approach God on the basis of our works.

How do you respond when someone who knows you well points out pride in you, or defensiveness, or a pattern of sin? Usually, we get defensive—we’re not willing to acknowledge the chasm. Why are we so sensitive to this kind of criticism? Why do we feel better about ourselves when we have “good weeks” where we’re prayerful, generous, disciplined, and present at church and community group? Deep down, we’re still building our lives on our own record. We might know we’re sinners in theory, but functionally we still live as though our access to God depends on our performance. Some people are crushed by guilt and shame—but in reality, that reveals they still haven’t seen the chasm. Why? Because they still think it’s about their works. If you really saw the chasm, you’d understand it was never about your works in the first place. As the Apostle Paul says in the book of Romans, “There is no one righteous, not even one.”

Then there’s the imagery of the ark itself. If you walked into the tabernacle, you’d see symbols everywhere pointing to the Garden of Eden—the world as it was meant to be. Before the high priest could enter into the Holy of Holies, he had to pass through a thick veil representing the chasm. Woven into that curtain were cherubim. When Adam and Eve sinned and were driven from the garden, God placed angels at the entrance with flaming swords flashing in every direction. The message was clear: if you try to return to the presence of God on your own, you’ll go under the sword and die. Sin has created a great divide, and no one can cross it alone. In verse 8, David is angry, because he was so close to having God’s presence. But then in verse 9, he’s afraid, because he finally realizes the problem: How can the ark of the Lord ever come to me? How can this chasm ever be crossed?

Question 2: Why does Uzzah’s response seem so reasonable to us? Where do you still believe that your sincerity, intentions, or effort should count for more than they actually do before God?

The Provision of God’s Presence

All throughout 1 and 2 Samuel, the ark brings judgment and death wherever it goes. After Uzzah’s death, the ark was left at the house of Obed-Edom, a Gittite. But in a remarkable twist, verse 11 says that the Lord blessed Obed-Edom and his whole household! Throughout the Old Testament, Obed-Edom is associated with priestly service. He seems to have understood the chasm and treated the presence of God as holy. He knew that to draw near there had to be sacrifice. As a result, he experienced blessing. If a foreigner or outsider like Obed-Edom could receive God’s presence and be blessed, then there is hope for anyone.

Some of us might ask, If God is really loving and forgiving, why couldn’t he just let Uzzah go? But if you’ve ever been deeply betrayed by someone you loved, you know it’s impossible to simply shrug it off. Real forgiveness is never free—either the offender pays, or the one who has been offended absorbs the cost through forgiveness. Either way, someone suffers. If that’s true even between finite human beings, how much more when the One who has been sinned against is the infinite and holy God? But in verse 12, David finally begins to understand—God has made a provision. David comes down to bring the ark to Jerusalem. This time the ark is carried properly, and in verse 13, after six steps, he stops and offers a sacrifice. David, acting like a priest, realizes that you can’t approach God through your own effort. Six steps evoke the creation account of six days of labor, but you can’t enter rest—the seventh day—without sacrifice. That’s why the place above the ark was called the mercy seat—because that’s where blood was shed and atonement was made. God had opened a way so that David could draw near through the blood of a substitute. But what about us?

Centuries later, Jesus Christ—the greater David—offers himself to bridge the ultimate chasm between God and his people. As the perfect high priest and sacrifice, he opens the way for us to enter the presence of God, the very thing David longed for. On the cross, Jesus bears the utter loneliness and agony as the only One who ever truly endured abandonment from God in its fullest sense. In the Garden of Gethsemane, just before his arrest, Jesus says, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death.” He’s staring into the ultimate chasm and understands what it will cost him. And still he says, “Your will be done.” Then on the cross he cries, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” In other words: I’ve traded in God’s presence for his wrath. Jesus, the greater David and Obed-Edom, also becomes the ultimate Uzzah, struck down and receiving the full judgment of God for our irreverence. Why? So that we might have access, intimacy, and joy in the presence of God forever. The wrath of God has been satisfied. Rather than standing before God in our own goodness, we can stand in the death of Christ.

When you see Jesus going under the sword himself so that you wouldn’t have to, you can truly worship. Before David understood this, he was simply part of the procession. Some of us have been in church all our lives doing the same thing—walking, singing, serving, giving—but we still haven’t seen the chasm, which produces judgment toward others, anger toward God, and fear about where we stand. But once David understood, everything changed. In verses 14-19, there’s another procession, but this time David is dancing with all his might. The gospel transforms his worship. He moves from believing in God, to being angry, to fearing God, and finally to worshiping him with joy.

In verse 20, his wife Michal despises him. She sees his dancing as embarrassing and undignified. But David no longer lives under the weight of others’ approval, because he had seen God’s grace even in the face of his sin. That’s what led him to dance and worship. The same is true for us. We stand before God not in our own record, but in the death and resurrection of Christ. Because he has come near to us, his presence is enough to carry us through every valley.

Question 3: What do you think it means, in a practical sense, to “stand in the death of Christ” rather than in your own goodness?