Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction: Isaac Newton vs. the Sun

Good morning, greetings this Palm Sunday as we enter what historically the church has called the Holy Week.

And while this day is typically called Palm Sunday on the church calendar because of the Palm branches waved upon His entrance into Jerusalem, it is also called Passion Sunday because Christ’s entrance into Jerusalem was a part of His passion meaning that He was entering the city as the Suffering Servant, lowly on a donkey for the purpose of dying.

He was fulfilling His role as The Messiah, the Anointed One of Israel who came to deliver fallen mankind from their sin and misery.

I want to look at two passages this morning.

One from the Old Testament and one from the New.

Both passages are a look at the Lord entering Jerusalem…one symbolically and one physically.

So please join me in 2 Samuel Chapter 6 where we will be looking at verses 1-15 and then turn to the Gospel of Matthew Chapter 21 where we will be looking at the Triumphal entry.

I’ll be reading these passages together with just a brief pause between them so if you are reading along, I suggest you place a marker of some sort to assist navigating between the passages.

2 Samuel chapter 6, beginning in verse 1 [READ]

The Gospel of Matthew Chapter 21, beginning in verse 1 [READ}

Thus ends the reading...

Isaac Newton is arguably one of the most brilliant men in history.

He is recognized as one of the most influential scientists of all times and his accolades are as a mathematician, physicist, astronomer, theologian, philosopher, as well as author.

It was Newton who formulated the laws of motion, as well as his theory of universal gravitation which allowed him to prove Kepler’s laws of planetary motion.

It was Newton who built the first practical reflecting telescope and the theory of color.

It was Newton who formulated an empirical law of cooling and calculated the speed of sound.

It was Newton who introduced the notion of what we call Newtonian Fluids.

Not to mention his many contributions to mathematics such as binomial theorem, a method of approximating the roots of a function and classifying of the cubic plane curves.

And yet as gifted as Isaac Newton was, even I know better than to stare at the sun.

I’m not sure what experiment he was conducting at the time, but Newton stared at the sun reflected in a mirror.

Not only did he do this, which I don’t need to explain would be problematic and injurious but, to make matters worse, he first waited in a dark room so that his pupils dilated before using the mirror.

According to one article, his goal was to see if this would create any weird or interesting visual phenomena.

I could have told him that without the experiment.

And what he essentially accomplished was a sunburn upon his retina that led to his temporary blindness, a medical condition known as Solar Retinopathy where too much ultraviolet light floods into the retina.

He couldn’t make the vision of the sun go away.

All of you who have had a flashlight beam into your eyes knows this sensation.

And it didn’t matter if Newton were in the dark or with his eyes closed, burned into his retina was the picture of the sun…this bright spot in his vision.

He hid himself in the dark for 3 days to no avail.

If he had stared at the sun any longer, he would have experienced permanent blindness.

Newton said, “I used all means to divert my imagination from the sun, but if I thought upon him I presently saw his picture though I was in the dark.

Did Newton discover anything that day?

Well nothing more than a six-year old couldn’t have told him…that staring at the sun will hurt your eyes.

And all that Newton walked away with was a bad case of photophobia or the fear of the sun! https://curiosity.com/topics/why-shouldnt-you-stare-at-the-sun-curiosity/

Tim Mackie and Jon Collins, the co-founders of The Bible Project, use the sun as a metaphor for God’s holiness.

Like the meaning of the word holiness, the sun is unique in our solar system.

It is powerful, it is the source of light and life and beauty.

And yet while the sun, by God’s command, provides all of these good things…if you get too close, it will annihilate you.

And just like that, the presence of God is dangerous to those who are impure because God is pure…his holiness is not only His uniqueness as the only God and Creator but also His goodness.

As God tells Moses to remove his sandals because when God appeared and spoke to him out of the burning bush, God told Moses that he was upon holy ground.

The only reason the ground was holy was because God’s presence was manifest in a powerful way that became visible and knowable to Moses.

22 And the Philistines came up yet again and spread out in the Valley of Rephaim.

23 And when David inquired of the LORD, he said, “You shall not go up; go around to their rear, and come against them opposite the balsam trees.

24 And when you hear the sound of marching in the tops of the balsam trees, then rouse yourself, for then the LORD has gone out before you to strike down the army of the Philistines.”

25 And David did as the LORD commanded him, and struck down the Philistines from Geba to Gezer.

And God’s instruction to Moses is to not come any closer.

And believe me Moses didn’t want to.

Just like we wouldn’t want to get any closer to the sun.

https://thebibleproject.com/team/

In our passage in 2 Samuel, we have an incident regarding the Ark of the Covenant.

Now just so you have some of the background to what is going on here.

Back in the book of 1 Samuel, the Israelites go to war against the Philistines and instead of seeking the Lord and His wisdom, they decide to carry the Ark of the Covenant with them into battle and their idea was that the Ark would deliver them from the Philistines.

But the Ark wasn’t to be treated like a rabbit’s foot or some good luck charm and God gives them over to a great defeat and the Ark is captured by the Philistines.

Israel lost 30,000 foot soldiers in that battle as well as the Ark itself and it was during that battle, if you will remember that the two wicked sons of Eli are killed and Eli dies after hearing that the Ark was captured.

Well, what happens to the Ark?

The Philistines take the Ark and they bring it to Ashdod and they put it in the temple to their god Dagon and God defeats their worthless idol by toppling his image over and after they set Dagon up again, God not only topples his image but cuts off his hands upon the threshold of the temple.

And then God hits the Ashdodites with a plague of tumors and mice and so the Philistines decide to move the Ark to Gath…another Philistine city.

So God struck that city with tumors, so the Philistines moved it to Ekron, which was like a border town between Israel and the land of the Philistines.

But the Ekronites were terrified and didn’t want it there and they too were struck with this plague of tumors and mice.

And this went on for 7 months.

And the decision was made to send the Ark back to Israel

So God defeats the Philistines and their god without an army at all.

So they hitch up a cart to milk cows and send them down the road and the cows took the cart to Beth-shemesh in the land of Israel.

The people are happy, but they look into the Ark and God wipes them out.

He kills over 50,000 men.

And this is what the men of Beth-shemesh say, ““Who is able to stand before the LORD, this holy God?

And to whom shall He go up from us?”

And the answer is that no one is able to stand against the holy God of the universe, the creator of all things.

According to , the ark was placed upon a new cart.

The cart was the way that the Philistines carried the ark.

But God had instructed that poles be placed

And so they tell the folks at Kiriath-Jearim to come get the Ark.

Which they do and it goes to the house of Abinadab and they consecrate a man by the name of Eleazar to care for it.

And the Ark of the Covenant stays there for 20 years.

Now in that 20 years.

Israel goes from a nation of tribes and becomes a kingdom.

First with Saul and then with David.

Fast forward to 2nd Samuel.

Saul is dead.

David is in his hey day.

He unifies the kingdom.

He captures Jerusalem and renames it Zion and makes it the political capital of the nation.

and then he decides that Zion should also be the religious capital as well and in order for that to happen…David needs to bring the Ark to the city.

Which brings us to .

And so David the King decides to bring the Ark, the very symbol of God’s presence into Jerusalem.

According to , the ark was placed upon a new cart.

The cart was the way that the Philistines carried the ark.

But God had instructed that poles be placed through 4 rings and the ark to be carried by Levites.

Look at verse 3 [read]

Verse 4 [read]

So David follows the example of the Philistines in the construction of a new cart to transport the Ark of God.

Now this likely was because David didn’t know any better.

It had been 20 years since the Ark of the Covenant had been moved.

Only a Levite was to move the Ark and the house of Abinadab was not a house of Levites.

Furthermore the Levites needed to be consecrated, ceremonially clean and to be wearing the proper attire and make sacrifices and so forth…and none of that was done.

And even if all of that was done.

The Levites would insert the gold covered staffs that had been consecrated for the purpose of carrying the ark through the rings of the ark and they, themselves were not to touch it.

Was the Ark magical?

No, it was wood covered in gold.

But God had set it apart as the symbol of His presence and it was to be treated as holy unto the Lord.