Day 140

1 Samuel 5:1-7:17, John 11:45-12:11, Proverbs 12:18-27

The power of God is beyond anything that we could ever imagine, even other God’s bow down to him.

Dagon was a fertility God of the Philistines and Amorites, also the God of fishing, some images have him as a mermaid (or merman) kind of figure. We know that there is only one God, but this story shows the people that all the little gods that they put their faith in are nothing compared to the Lord. Even statues and inanimate objects are prostrate before the ark of the Lord, and then the people realise how powerful God is and they try and palm the ark off on each other. They just can’t handle the power.

The Philistines were on a bit of a sticky wicket, they wanted to get rid of this thing but they also didn’t want to hand the power back to Israel, so they passed it from city to city. Eventually though it is all too much for them and they do indeed send it back … and the people of Israel struggle to handle the majesty of it all and they sneak a look inside. I love the line “We have the ark, come and take it to your place”. It sounds like a bunch of friends who no-longer want the school pet over the holidays – “come and take it to your place, I’ve had enough of it”!

The ark of the covenant was too much for these people and what Jesus was doing was a bit too much for the Sanhedrin. I’m not sure if we have mentioned them yet but they were the ruling council of the time and Caiaphas was up there at the top, and there is a name that we will see again. It is interesting that John refers to his words as a prophesy, that Jesus would die for the whole nation and even those outside Israel. We can note that he said similar stuff to Isaiah and Jeremiah and yet he is the villain and they are the heroes. His motive however was Jesus blood, it does make a bit of a difference.

The other thing that was too much was the oil that was poured over Jesus feet (well according to Judas anyway). This is the God who is too much for Dagon, too much for the Philistines and too much even for some of Israel, who was too much for Caiaphas and whose death is so much more than we deserve. All of this demands some sort of praise and what Mary offers is not too much, it isn’t really enough for our God of wonders.

In response to these readings let us offer something to God.