He's Left The Building

Not in a box. Not behind a curtain. Jesus in me. Of this I am certain.

GOD IN A BOX. A wooden box inlaid with gold, an angel carving on either end. The God of all things, who hovered over the waters, and I don’t mean a six-foot square. Oh no, He hovered over the WATERS, meaning the entire earth. That God. The One who hovered over the waters, the One who spoke, “LIGHT BE!” and light came, although there was no sun nor moon nor stars. That One put Himself in a box. Put the box behind curtain. Hung the curtain between the walls. And there, in the box, He resided so that He could speak to His people.

He created whales. And hummingbirds. He created minnows. And giraffes. He dug the ocean’s depths, raised the soil into the Andes, the Himalayas. Yet He lived in a box which had to be carried around when the people moved. Only there were instructions, these certain people carry it, in this manner, and the rest of you stay x-number of feet back. The God in the box was still powerful enough to do some damage.

Case in point. There was the time the Philistines stole the box. Yeah. Dumb idea. They stole the box and set it up beside their fake god Dagon. Next morning, they come in and Dagon’s head is missing, and his hands have been removed. The God in the box did that. They didn’t get the picture though, thought they’d hang onto the box, teach those Israelites a lesson. But next thing you know, every city for miles can’t sit down comfortably. Yeah, they returned the box to its owner. Quickly.

Then there’s the time King David messed up. He was taking the box to Jerusalem but didn’t follow God’s commandment about the box. Kind of important. A man touched the box and died, and so King Dave had to reassess and go read the manual. Meanwhile, he leaves the box in the home of Obededom the Gittite who, while he’s waiting on David to return for the box, has this amazing burst of prosperity. God in the box is in his house and he’s raking in the cash, hand over fist.

God was in the box so God could be among the people. So He could guide them, teach them, and cleanse their sins. God was in the box so they could be a holy people, set apart to Himself, so that they could create generations who followed in their footsteps, who worshiped the living God as they did and then, one day, He could send, through them the Redeemer. God was in the box so He could come out of the box and be one of the people. It’s amazing when you think about it. God didn’t deviate one iota from His design. He created man and woman to leave their father and mother and be joined together, to cleave, and multiply and have children and spread His goodness around the earth. And the God of heaven and earth followed His own instructions—sends His Son, God Himself, to be born as an infant to a married couple, exactly as He set up in Genesis long ago.

He is unchanging, the God of the box. He never lies, never tells an untruth. He is Truth, and He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. But not in the box, and not behind a curtain. He made sure of that, tore the curtain from top to bottom, an impossibility, so everyone would know God had left the box, left the Holiest of Holies and would now live in men. In the hearts of the people, He would reside and speak to them and guide them and teach them, and the power that was in the box that could do terrible and amazing things would flow through them and emerge in their spoken words, in their actions, in their confidence.

They’d become the box that contained the God of all, and they’d preach the gospel, lay hands on the sick, and see them recover. That last part’s part of the story. Not just that these new temples would pray, not just that they would preach, but that the God who’d left the box would work through them to change the landscape. He’d become the God in them and the God upon them who worked through them, who loved all of them, and died and rose again so they’d become like Him. Outside the box.

Photo by Ante Hamersmit on Unsplash


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Suzanne D. Williams, Author
www.suzannedwilliams.com
www.feelgoodromance.com