The ark of God remained with the family of Obed-Edom in his house for three months, and the LORD blessed his household and everything he had. – 1 Chronicles 13:14

Today’s Scripture Reading (August 26, 2013): 1 Chronicles 13

One of my favorite lines in C. S. Lewis’ “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe,” concerns the nature of Aslan. Lucy is worried about this Aslan she is about to meet. Her first question is whether or not Aslan is a man. To her surprise, she finds out that he isn’t - he is a lion. And that only increases Lucy’s anxiety. She is not sure how she feels about meeting a lion. But her next question cuts to the heart of the matter – is he safe. The answer she receives is  - “Safe?” said Mr. Beaver; “don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King …” Lucy is looking for safe, but that is not who Aslan is – Aslan is dangerous.

Life is full of dangers. And so we have built safety procedures to try and handle them. We lock chemicals away from our young children. We keep them away from the dangers of life until they are old enough to understand. We keep them away from driving cars until they are into their teenage years (although some would like that age to be raised) and we keep them away from the ability to buy cigarettes and alcohol for themselves until they are considered to be adults and hopefully able to handle the dangers. No one would go to a neighborhood banker in order to have an operation performed on their body. Life is full of dangers, but we do our best to manage them. Our hope seems to always be that life can be made safe. And so we carry that expectation into our relationship with God – we want him to be safe too, but that is just not in his nature.

David seemed to be looking for the same Aslan as Lucy was. He was looking for a God who was safe – but that was not the nature of God. God was dangerous – but he was good. David’s problem was that even though everything was laid out in front of him, he had missed it. The first duty of every king was to know the will of God - a will that had been laid out in the first five books of the Bible – the Torah or Law. But in his handling of the Ark of the Covenant, David had proved that he had failed in that knowledge. The procedures had all been written down, but David had ignored the writings.

And so David decides that it is time to leave the Ark of the Covenant at the home of Obed-Edom. He was not sure he wanted a dangerous God anywhere near where he was. Obed-Edom on the other hand was from a Levitical family, and he knew how the Ark was to be handled. The result was that he was blessed. For three months the Ark of the Covenant was in his living room. And when the king did come back for the Ark to carry it into the tabernacle in Jerusalem – he would learn from Obed-Edom about the proper way to handle the Ark. Obed-Edom proved what the Beaver’s had been trying to tell Lucy – Aslan (God) is not safe – but he is good. And we should not expect him to be anything else.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: 1 Chronicles 14

Note: The VantagePoint Community Church (Edmonton) message "The Plea" from the Message Series "An Epic Summer" is now available on the VantagePoint Website. Kevin Green is the speaker and you can find the talk here.