Serving Bread

13 Now the people of Bethshemesh were reaping their wheat harvest in the valley. When they looked up and saw the ark, they went with rejoicing to meet it. 14 The cart came into the field of Joshua of Bethshemesh, and stopped there. A large stone was there; so they split up the wood of the cart and offered the cows as a burnt offering to the Lord.”

I don’t know much about Joshua of Bethshemesh. I did a Google search on him and found nothing apart from the Biblical text (though after publishing this post, perhaps this post will come up). The Philistines captured the Ark of the Lord in a decisive battle, but this was more of a curse than a blessing, as thousands of Philistines were killed by the “heavy hand of the Lord.” So they sent the ark away, and figure if it’s really divine, it will go where it needs to go. Well, the Ark is divine and it ends back in Israel on Joshua’s property.

There is no other mention of this Joshua apart from this passage. We don’t know his obedience or faithfulness level. We don’t know about his family. We know something about his name and his town. Perhaps he was named after the great Joshua, Moses’s lieutenant who led the Israelites into the Promise Land, or his parents named him because they believe that “God saves” which is a translation of Joshua. His town is Bethshemesh–which means the town of the sun. It was a northern border town in Judah, a couple miles from Philistine.

What an honor on the one hand, and on the other hand, it could have been somewhat troubling to have the Ark of the Lord–the presence of God–dwell on your property. I am sure they know the stories of God striking down anyone who does not handle the ark with proper care. Joshua’s field has all of a sudden become a sacred place of worship. He can’t do anything about moving it, unless he was fine risking his life to do so. On the other hand, Joshua could have been overjoyed to be the person who gets to host God upon the Ark’s return to Israel.

The text tells us that the people rejoice and offer sacrifices when they see the Ark. 1 Samuel 4 and 5 records how the Ark was captured by the Philistines. The story emphasizes how this enemy of God’s people captured the Ark of God. I am sure there was a hero responsible for taking away the most important and worthy thing in all of Israel. Yet in chapter 6, we read that the return of the Ark was not due to some military battle or some hero–God orchestrates the return of the Ark. God leads the Ark back and parks it in Josh’s backyard.

No one can take credit for the return of the Ark but God. And the text doesn’t tell us why Joshua was picked. That’s not the point of the text. The point is not to figure out why Bethshemesh or why Joshua. The point is that God orchestrates the greatest victory Israel has won. You can imagine there were priests and military generals strategizing on re-capturing the Ark, only to see that God orchestrated the return of God’s presence.

The beautiful truth that the story of God stresses throughout the scriptures and throughout history is that God orchestrates God’s presence. I need to remember that. The heroes of the faith are those who respond to God’s presence, not the ones who think they are the reason for God’s presence. There are plenty of people who fall in the latter category. Their charisma and apparent blessing draws me to want that, for they must be the hero who knows how to usher God’s presence. What I need in myself and what we need more of, are people who recognize that it is God who does the God thing. And when he does (and it can be more often than not I’m realizing), would he find me rejoicing?

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