(A FUN POST FOR A FRIDAY!!!!)

“We are passing through history…” “This IS history.” – a quote from the 1st Raiders of the Lost Ark movie.

Of course, in preparation for the newest and LAST “Raiders of the Lost Ark” with Indiana Jones, mmmm, love Harrison Ford of course, I watched the first, best, and ONLY good “Raiders of the Lost Ark”. 1981.

I couldn’t tell you anything else about the other Raiders movies in the series, except that they were awful in my memory, (jumped the shark!)… But the original? 1981? when I was eleven years old? WOW!!!! It was the finest action adventure era – a PREMIERE movie making time – for me as a pre-teen… I mean, I saw the first BEST “Star Wars” in the theater at age 7, just old enough, in the late 70’s. And this “Raiders of the Lost Ark” I was in the theater at age 11. WOW. Trust me it didn’t get any better than that.  And trust me, all sequels tanked in my memory comparison but still probably raked in money.  Case Closed. (But royalties are still rolling in because I just watched it on Disney Plus last night to refresh my memory.)

Case Closed in that movie: they CLOSED the storage box for the Ark of the Covenant and filed it away in top secret LOST-ness in the US government warehouse. Case Closed, they (our heros getting the Ark first so that the Nazi’s or their co-collaborators didn’t) had gained nothing but money from the government and gained no Ark for a museum piece as they had hoped. Government red tape and secrecy? Case Closed. AND all the villains died, MELTED in the movie scene of opening the Ark of the Covenant. Eww…  No sequel for them! Case Closed. (maybe, depending on movie magic).

What about the big scenes of God’s intervention? *Trust me God is MUCH bigger than anything in the movies* Or of what they perceived as mystical other worldly powers inside the Ark? There are only a few scenes of lightning and thunder – and later the Nazi symbol was burned on the box in a mini scene showing its power to a mouse. Later when they actually went to open the ark, the lid blew up in an electrical explosion then BOOM it came right back down on the Ark, cool – and yet fitting. Casement Closed. (and Hey did you notice that the scene locale resembles a Star Wars canyon? Yes. Same place in Tunisia. Ah yes that’s all movie magic…

What about God Himself? Where did that Ark go? What did God do to it or in it after the Ark? What happened to the Law tablets captured in the Ark as broken tablet pieces? What even happened to the rituals and the Law? Let’s put the theoretical movie stuff aside. The Law continued and continues. Really, let’s snap to reality here, does God need the pieces to keep the Law? no. Does God need the pieces enough to keep the lid on them and lock them away? Hmm… Well, surely He had the people in Moses’s time make the Ark for their ability to find a travelling focal point of Sovereignty, to have the people understand that He was Sovereign ALL IN ALL. But God needs nothing but Himself to prove that point. 

Sure, the ark could have gone to some secret location? Or in truth did God really reopen not the lid but the real case of FORGIVENESS-GIFTING with a NEW Covenant? Yes, God brought forth a New Covenant! A new creation? YES! A new that was old planned and that is still IN time to come! Yes! Yes, God gave Jesus. Jesus gave Himself as a New Covenant. The Law and Prophets fulfilled. Jesus saves. Case Closed. Even King Josiah putting Solomon’s Temple back in order was able to say ‘the burden of the Covenant is no longer on the shoulders’, physically, and we can say our burdens are placed on Jesus, not us, Thank You God.

“We are passing through history…” “This IS history.” – well the people of earth will pass through history and then be History if they don’t let history (His-Story) pass through them!

So of course, I’m going to see that new final movie in the series, at some point. But the best news I can give you for TODAY is the best rave review of TRUTH, better than any movie, better than any weekend anticipation… The GOOD NEWS is this: JESUS came to Save, and He did.  Case Closed! (and he keeps our cases secured in His Hand.). 

Amen – and go enjoy the weekend – maybe see the movie – and of course enjoy a freedom of the 4th of July – but always be carrying on (no burden needed) a life of serving the Lord, always. 

2nd Chronicles 35:1-3 NKJV

Now Josiah kept a Passover to the Lord in Jerusalem, and they slaughtered the Passover lambs on the fourteenth day of the first month. And he set the priests in their duties and encouraged them for the service of the house of the Lord. Then he said to the Levites who taught all Israel, who were holy to the Lord: “Put the holy ark in the house which Solomon the son of David, king of Israel, built. It shall no longer be a burden on your shoulders. Now serve the Lord your God and His people Israel.

(PS – how interesting/fitting that I will be prepping for a future VBS day that includes King Josiah – God’s timing is more amazing than movie magic! Amen Amen)