Scripture Daily

Context No. 582 of 4322 · 2 Chronicles

Context · Reflection

2 Chronicles 7:1-6: in context

1Now when Solomon had finished praying, fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices; and the LORD’s glory filled the house. 2The priests could not enter into the LORD’s house, because the LORD’s glory filled the LORD’s house. 3All the children of Israel looked on, when the fire came down, and the LORD’s glory was on the house. They bowed themselves with their faces to the ground on the pavement, worshiped, and gave thanks to the LORD, saying, “For he is good, for his loving kindness endures forever!” 4Then the king and all the people offered sacrifices before the LORD. 5King Solomon offered a sacrifice of twenty-two thousand head of cattle and a hundred twenty thousand sheep. So the king and all the people dedicated God’s house. 6The priests stood, according to their positions; the Levites also with instruments of music of the LORD, which David the king had made to give thanks to the LORD, when David praised by their ministry, saying “For his loving kindness endures forever.” The priests sounded trumpets before them; and all Israel stood.

Solomon has just finished dedicating the temple with a long prayer, and God answers in a way no one could ignore. Fire comes down from heaven and consumes the sacrifices, and the glory of the LORD fills the house so completely that the priests cannot even enter it. Think about that detail. The priests were the professionals, the trained ministers whose whole job was to work inside that building, to tend the altar and perform the rituals. And when God's actual glory descended, they could not do their jobs; they could not so much as get through the door. The presence of God was so overwhelming that the entire religious machinery simply stopped, and everyone, priests and people alike, fell on their faces and worshiped, crying out, he is good, his steadfast love endures forever.

There is a lesson buried in the priests being shut out by glory. All the apparatus of religion, the building, the altar, the sacrifices, the trained ministers, existed for one purpose: the presence of God. And when that presence actually came, the apparatus became beside the point. You do not run rituals in the middle of the glory of God; you fall down. The moment God himself showed up, the difference between managing religious activity and encountering the living God became total. The professionals with their duties gave way to worshipers on their faces, because in the presence of that glory there was nothing to do but adore.

That searches what I am actually after in my faith. It is entirely possible to become skilled at the machinery of religion, the routines, the activities, the familiar motions, and to mistake keeping that machinery running for the thing itself. This scene reminds me that all of it exists for the presence and glory of God, and that if that glory ever truly broke in, it would stop my busy religious functioning cold and put me on my face. Do I actually hunger for the presence and glory of God himself, or have I settled for running the machinery of religion, and would I even make room for a glory that shut down all my careful activity and left me only able to worship?

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