Boxes
I gathered a handful of greeting cards from the table and sought somewhere to
keep them. They were precious and I wanted to keep them safely.
“I need a box,” I said to thin air and there was an immediate use for one of the
cardboard boxes I can’t bear to throw away.
Boxes have a grip on me, they congregate in my cupboards and on my floors and
the quality of the box indicates the status of its treasure.
Anything important goes into a box. Therefore it does not surprise me that the
most important document in history was kept in a box.
It was a box especially constructed to specific measurements and the craftsman
was a master tradesman taught by the most gifted Teacher anywhere to be found.
When the box was finished it was covered with gold, inside and out, and the
cover on the top was all of pure gold.
Some box! But that is not all; built as part of the cover were two standing,
golden angels with their wings outspread and pointing upwards. They stood
looking down over the golden cover. And once a year, the blood of sacrifices was
sprinkled on the box.
Can you imagine what such a box contained - International peace treaties? A map
of the universe? Testimonies of all the greatest preachers? Cures for every
illness? Diamonds? Sapphires?
No. It contained just two slates of ordinary stone, possibly granite.
Disappointed?
Ah, but listen; “Cut for yourself two stone tablets … and I shall write on
them …” (Deuteronomy 10:1,2.)
No wonder the box was impressive. It indicated the importance of the documents,
the two pieces of stone on which God Himself had actually written His law.
No other gods have ever done such a thing.
But we are more precious than even the golden box. It was sprinkled with the
blood of sacrificed animals.
We are not just sprinkled but standing in light and totally washed clean by the
blood of Jesus, our sacrifice, 'if we live in the light as he himself is in
the light, then we share a common life, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses
us from all sin" (1st John 1:7).
The box is gone from our sight but we are lifted out of it to be ‘a chosen
race, a royal priesthood, a dedicated nation, a people claimed by God for his
own, to proclaim the glorious deeds of him who has called you out of darkness
into his marvellous light.’ (1st Peter 2:9)
Elizabeth Price