The Holiness of God

The Holiness of God
1 Chron. 13:1-14
“The anger of the Lord burned against Uzza, so He struck him down because he put out his hand to the ark, and he died there before God.”

We often minimize God’s commands and trivialize what God instructs. What started as a day of celebration and song, ended in tragedy and lament. After the Philistines had captured the Ark of Covenant, it was brought back to Kiriath-Jearim (see 1 Samual 5). There it remained for the next forty years, overlooked and forgotten by the nation as the nation struggled under the reign of Saul and the subsequent civil war (1 Chron 13:3). After David had solidified the kingdom under his rule, he decided to bring the Ark to his capital in Jerusalem. With great excitement and music, they sought to bring the Ark to Jerusalem to symbolize the presence of God.
They then placed the Ark upon a cart and began the processional. However, the unexpected happened, the cart suddenly rocked, and the Ark was almost dislodged. Seeing the risk of the Ark tumbling off the cart, Uzza did what all of us would do. He reacted by putting his hand out to steady the Ark. This was when the tragedy struck. In response to his outreach to protect the Ark, Uzza was put to death by God. Seeing the sudden outburst against Uzza, David was incensed. How could God do such a cruel when they intended to honor God?
To understand why God reacted in anger, we need to back to the law that was to govern all that Israel did. In Numbers 4:15 and 7:9, God had specific regulations to control how the Ark was moved to recognize the holiness of God symbolized by the Ark. When the Ark was moved, it was to be carefully covered by Aaron and his sons. Then it was to be carried with poles  on the shoulders of the sons of Kohath so that no one would “touch the holy objects and die.”    Because Uzza was not an Aaronic priest, he was prohibited from touching the Ark, which was the holiest object in the temple. God’s anger is never explosive or unreasonable. It never controls him. Instead, in the words of Walter Kaiser, “His anger marks the end of indifference, for he cannot remain neutral or impartial in the presence of sin.”  
In their act of moving the Ark by a cart, David and the Israelites were a direct act of disobedience and it was treating the Ark as a common artifact rather than the holy representation of God. It was more than just a mistaken method of transporting the Ark. It was treating the Ark with the same disrespect that the Philistines had done. In their enthusiasm and excitement, they neglected to recognize the holiness of God and the necessity of obeying God.  
When Uzza was put to death, it was a dramatic reminder to David and the Israelites that God is holy and to be treated as such. While familiarity does not necessarily breed contempt, it can make indifferent and thoughtless of God’s law. Instead of God becoming the supreme Lord over all, he becomes the “big guy in the sky.”  Instead of God being honored, we become disrespectful and careless in our obedience. We fail to recognize that all sin, no matter how minor, is an insult to the perfect and holy God. Instead, it becomes inconsequential. When this happens, we lose sight of God.
Throughout the scripture, we are reminded to keep his holiness and love in perfect balance, which is often not easy to do. We are to remember that he loves us and invites us into his presence, but we are always to remember that we are standing are holy ground. C.S. Lewis gives us this balance in the children's book, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe when Mr. Beaver describes Aslan (a picture of Christ), “Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”  We can always approach him as our father. Yet we must also recognize that we can only approach him through the forgiveness and cleansing of Christ’s substitutionary sacrifice.