Tuesday, 11/10/2009
Moving the Ark to the New Temple
I saw a political cartoon yesterday on the editorial page of San Jose Mercury. It depicted a man kneeling and praying; the man was saying, “I do not have a job and have no health insurance. But I prevented the gay couple down the street from marrying.”
I did not think much of it at the time. But a few minutes later, I had this burning anger in my guts. I asked myself why I was angry. After some soul searching, I find the reason. Let me explain.
Here is my observation. The cartoonist, could not be a Christian himself. If he was, he would have known that Christian do not make the prayer depicted in his cartoon center of their life. Since he was not depicting his a typical prayer, his cartoon was a direct affront to the characters of Christians. I was angry because I felt like I was slapped in the face.
I am writing this for another reason though. I want to explore the motive of the cartoonist and what the actual damage is.
Why did he do it? Perhaps he felt like being slapped himself. The recent vote in Maine to overturn homosexual marriage was no doubt a huge disappointment to pro-homosexual camp. They may have felt that the religious communities (of both Christianity and others religions) were slapping their face as well, although slapping their face was certainly not the intent. Very likely, the disappointment is the motivation for this cartoon.
What the cartoonist tried to do was a classic of the logical fallacy of red herring. Instead of arguing the merit of granting the marriage license to specific groups of couples who would never form a family, the cartoonist simply made the Christians look silly and self-righteous. In so doing, he/she is merely stirring hatred among the people of US and specifically toward the religious communities. Instead of giving people hope and unity, he/she was breaking the fabric of the society. That is why I decided to write about the cartoon.
Back onto the devotion for today.
Commentary:
This day was the official day of moving into the new temple. First the remaining treasures and gold were put in the treasury of the temple. Then the ark was moved into the temple. It was a grant ceremony attended by everyone. Unnumbered sacrifices were made. Finally, the Levitical singers gave their praises. Asaph led his choir and instrumentalists to God the blessings. At such time, the glory of God appeared as a cloud.
Meditation:
When we sing praise and offer God the thanksgivings and adoration, He would be pleased. Perhaps there are some of us who do not sing well and chose not to sing in private or in Sunday service. I think of two things about praising God. First of all, God looks at the heart and not the skill. The fact we are singing our hearts out matters more than how well we do it. I once sat in a service where there was a woman who sang very loud and very off key. It was a kind of funny and somewhat distractive. But I thought that God would like her praise. I just sang a bit louder to cover up her voice.
Secondly, there are alternative to praising God. We can always use words to give Him the praise. The psalms in the Bible are wonderful ways of giving God the praise and adoration.
So keep trying to sing and find other meaningful ways to praise God.
Prayer:
Let’s give God the praise and glory that He deserves.
Memory Verse: 2Chronicles 5: 13 in unison when the trumpeters and the singers were to make themselves heard with one voice to praise and to glorify the Lord, and when they lifted up their voice accompanied by trumpets and cymbals and instruments of music, and when they praised the Lord saying, “He indeed is good for His lovingkindness is everlasting,” then the house, the house of the Lord, was filled with a cloud,