Your Beauty Makes Me Ugly
"I will become even more undignified than this, and I will be humiliated in my own eyes. But by these slave girls you spoke of, I will be held in honor.”
- 2 Samuel 6:22
2 Samuel 6 is one of those strange chapters of the Old Testament that leave us thinking like we just had a snapshot of a world that we feel we should understand, but instead feel like nothing makes sense.
In this chapter David, the new king of Israel, has just defeated the Philistines. He is now bringing the ark of the covenant to Jerusalem in a procession. The oxen pulling the ark stumble and a man named Uzzah grabs hold of the ark to keep it from tipping. For this indignity God strikes him down.
I have always found this to be a bit harsh. He was just trying to help, right? David feels the same way. He is angry that this happened, and 2 Samuel tells us he is also afraid. It dawns on him that God is not safe, and he doesn’t want God’s presence anywhere near him. So he leaves the ark in the home of Obed-Edom. For three months the ark stays there and the whole time the family of Obed-Edom is blessed by God. David comes to his senses and realizes that he wants those blessings, so he reclaims the ark.
There is a lesson hidden here. One might say it is the lesson of Christmas and the incarnation of God in Christ. The proximity of God to us in the person of Jesus is a double-edged sword. Consider Peter’s indignant rebuke of Jesus, like he would rebuke a buddy. Jesus would have none of it, “Get behind me Satan!” he cried. Like Uzzah and the Ark, Peter learns that Jesus physical nearness did not mean he was safe, familiar.
David, once he has accepted the dangerous truth of God’s presence, dances with joy before the ark as it comes into Jerusalem. He dances, practically naked, and his wife Michal sees him and despises him in her heart.
Iago, one of Shakespeare’s famous villains helps us understand Michal. He explained his hatred for Othello saying, “He has beauty in his life, and that makes me ugly.” Michal saw the beauty of David’s abandon and joy and since she did not share it, felt as if it made her ugly. Yet in a classic case of projection, she insisted it made David ugly. So, she despised him.
In her disdain she confronted David who answered her, “I will become more undignified… I will be humiliated… but by these slave girls I will be held in high honor.”
David made a fool of himself in the eyes of man, yet in the eyes of slave girls he was held in honor. Here again we see a picture of Christmas. The beauty of God wrapped in swaddling clothes. A beauty that drew people to him in his life and his death was the same beauty that caused people to hate him and kill him. There are only two ways to encounter Jesus: like the slave girls or like Michal. Either it is with honor or disdain. He is the two-edged sword that is never safe and whose coming splits the world asunder.
~ Pastor Joel