The “priests” of the Philistines are asked what to do about
this ark of the Lord. Their advice is to send it back to where it belongs with
guilt offerings also, golden images of tumors and mice (the mice represent the
lords of the people) and set it off on a cart pulled by two milk cows along the
road. If the cows take the road towards
Israelite territory then they will know it was Israel’s God who caused these
plagues as He had done in Egypt, if, however, the cows took the other fork, it
would signify that these were merely coincidences, either way that ark would be
gone. Wouldn’t you love to go back in
time and be there when the cows came to Beth-shemesh and the people there
opened the box with the tumors and mice in it?
They must have been quite puzzled about that. Mostly though, they were glad to have the ark
back, the Lord was among them again.
The man who hosted Jesus and the disciples (Isn’t it
interesting that in these last days of Jesus we are told of Zacchaeus in
Jericho and blind Bartimaeus but we have no idea what the names of the men who
supplied the donkey for the entrance and this host?) had to believe he had won
the lottery. After the triumphal entry,
the anticipation must have been overwhelming leading up to the feast. Jesus was teaching in the temple each day,
the crowds surely increasing every day, the entire city buzzing with questions,
opinions, and hope that this would be the Passover when it all came together,
that God truly returned in glory to Jerusalem.
Was this Messiah? When would He take the throne, the city had already
welcomed Him as its savior? At the
center of it all though was the leadership who hated Jesus and who people
surely knew wanted to ruin Him by any means possible. Judas knew it, he knew that they would be
happy and pay handsomely for betrayal, he knew of a time when there would be no
crowds to object to their activities, he knew where to go. This man, the host of what would be the Last
Supper, he had to have been incredibly honored to be chosen. Who knew that hosting this dinner would
become such a painful thing?
The council reminds the apostles they have been told not to
preach in “this Name” (notice they don’t say the Name) and yet they have done
exactly that, “filling Jerusalem with this teaching.” The irony of their statement continues with “you
intend to bring this man's blood upon us.”
Indeed, that would be their salvation and their forgiveness, not their
guilt. The resurrection and the Holy
Spirit changed Peter from the man who denied Jesus to the servant of the high
priest to a man that preached Jesus to the high priest himself. The man of fear was changed to a man of true
faith. Ultimately, it is decided based
on Gamaliel’s word that, like the Philistines with the ark, the best thing to
do is to let them go and see what happens next.
If this is God’s doing, well, we were horribly wrong and couldn’t stop
it anyway and if not, it will go away in due time. For good measure, however, they added a
beating but this only caused the apostles to rejoice that they were counted
worthy of suffering for the Name. There
was no way to win for the council. Is
our attitude towards suffering the same as the apostles?
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