Ark of the Covenant
(Mic.5:1-4; Heb.10:5-10; Lk.1:39-44)
In the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones searches for the Ark of the Covenant in Egypt. He bravely fights off the Nazis, but in the end he loses the Ark somewhere in a huge US government warehouse.
The story is fiction, of course, but in ancient times there really was an Ark of the Covenant – a golden chest that God asked Moses to make as a sign of his covenant with Israel. It held three precious items: the Ten Commandments inscribed on stone tablets, a golden jar of manna and the priestly rod of Aaron (Heb.9:4).
These three things represented God’s power, presence and promises to his people, and the Ark itself reflected that power. Indeed, when the priests started carrying the Ark across the Jordan River, the waters stopped flowing (Josh.3). The Ark made the walls of Jericho collapse (Josh.6), and the Philistines suffered great plagues after stealing it, so they returned it to the Israelites (1Sam.5).
For hundreds of years the Ark was kept in Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem. Then just before the Babylonians invaded the city in 586 BC, Jeremiah hid it in a cave (2Mac.2:5). But it hasn’t been seen since. [i]
Now, it’s significant that there are many parallels between the Ark of the Covenant and Mary’s visit to her cousin Elizabeth in today’s Gospel.
The Ark was made pure and holy, and for a divine purpose: to house God’s presence. So was Mary: she was created pure and holy and for a divine purpose, to carry the Son of God.
The Ark stays for three months in the house of Obed-Edom in Judea’s hill country (2Sam.6:1-11). Mary stays for three months in Elizabeth’s house, in the same hill country (Lk.1:39).
And just as ‘the Lord blessed Obed-Edom and all his household,’ so Elizabeth calls Mary and her unborn child ‘blessed’ three times.
When the Ark is brought to King David he asks: ‘How can the Ark of the Lord come to me?’ Similarly, when Mary arrives, Elizabeth asks ‘Why should I be honoured with a visit from the mother of my Lord?’
As well, when David sees the Ark, he leaps and dances with joy. As Mary approaches, John the Baptist leaps inside Elizabeth’s womb.
And finally, the Ark goes to Jerusalem, where God’s presence and glory is revealed in the Temple (2 Sam.6:12). Mary goes to Jerusalem, too, where she presents God incarnate in the Temple (Lk.1:56; 2:21-22).
The message here is that Mary is the Ark of the New Covenant.
The early Church Fathers understood this well. St Athanasius wrote: ‘O noble Virgin… clothed with purity instead of gold! You are the ark in which is found the golden vessel containing the true manna… the flesh in which divinity resides.’ [ii]
More recently, Archbishop Fulton Sheen said that just as the Ark carried the law, the manna, and Aaron’s rod, so Mary carried Jesus Christ – the lawgiver, the bread of life, and the eternal High Priest.
And it’s significant, he said, that when Mary was carrying Jesus, she didn’t stay at home. Instead, she went out into the world to see her cousin Elizabeth, and there Jesus’ presence opened the heart of John the Baptist.
Every morning, Mother Teresa did something very similar. She went to Mass to receive the Body and Blood of Christ in the Holy Eucharist. Then, bearing Jesus, she went out to serve the sick and the poor in the streets of Calcutta.
We, too, become a blessed tabernacle – a new Ark of the Covenant – every time we receive Jesus in the Holy Eucharist. Just like Mary and Mother Teresa, we become bearers of Christ’s body, blood, soul, and divinity. And we, too, are invited to carry Jesus out into the world.
In her autobiography, Story of a Soul, St Thérèse of Lisieux often speaks about carrying God within her and being a vessel of His love and mercy. St Bernadette of Lourdes also saw herself as a humble vessel, carrying God’s divine grace into the world.
So, the next time you receive the Holy Eucharist, think about what it really means.
The Holy Eucharist unites you intimately with Jesus. It fills you with his graces, it strengthens you against sin and it helps make you holy.
Whenever you receive the Holy Eucharist, you become an Ark of the Covenant.
A dwelling place for God.
[i] According to Ethiopian tradition, the Ark was brought to Ethiopia by the son of the Queen of Sheba. They say it’s kept in the Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion in Axum, but we cannot be sure because the public aren’t allowed to see it.
[ii] Quoted in Brant Pitre, Jesus and the Jewish Roots of Mary, Image, NY, 2018:65.