How Great a Treasure
Deuteronomy 31:24-26
When Moses had finished writing the words of this law in a book to the very end, Moses commanded the Levites who carried the ark of the covenant of the LORD, “Take this Book of the Law and put it by the side of the ark of the covenant of the LORD your God, that it may be there for a witness against you.”
Megan and I enjoy watching documentary-type shows related to historical mysteries, and we recently watched one about sacred relics allegedly imbued with mystical powers. The misconceptions surrounding these artifacts are as sad as they are ludicrous. For instance, one Buddhist Temple houses a tooth that belonged to the Buddha, and pilgrims travel from across the world just to be in its presence. Priests wash the tooth daily and bottle the water for pilgrims who think that drinking it will provide spiritual enlightenment and miraculous healing. Yet, sadder than that are the misconceptions surrounding certain devices related to Christ’s Passion. For example, some buffoon came up with the notion that the spear used to pierce our Lord’s side at Calvary gives its wielder ultimate power! Talk about missing the point.
There is, however, one such relic that really did possess special power and really did pronounce a divine curse on those who misused it according to Scripture, and that’s the ark of the covenant: the pre-Christian, pre-Pentecost, physical symbol of God’s presence on earth. Touch it without permission and you’d die. Draw near it as a priest without proper ceremonial cleanings and you’d die as well. Pillage it and parade it before your idols as a trophy of war and your idols will lay crushed by morning. Which is why, to this day, even after thousands of years, man’s fervor to find the sacred ark has only deepened.
Yet, look at Moses’ command to the Levites here in Deuteronomy 31:24-26, friend! This is the real pearl of greatest price! The Torah—the Books of Genesis through Deuteronomy—are side by side with the ark of the covenant. This divinely inspired parchment is every bit as sacred, every bit as precious, and every bit as divinely protected, and we hold it in our laps still today, not in fragmentary form but in its fullness, translated into our very tongue!
Ah, the truth! It sure beats a tooth.