1 Samuel 4:1-11 / Mark 1:40-45
During the time of the Old Testament, very few objects were considered holy to the Israelites.
One of the holy objects was the ark of the covenant which contained the two tablets of the 10 Commandments, and it was just only that.
But the ark of the covenant mysteriously disappeared when the Babylonians captured Jerusalem and destroyed the Temple in 587BC.
In the 1st reading, we heard of the ark and how it was used by Israel in the battle against the Philistines.
Yes, the ark was "used" to invoke the power of God to fight the enemy, simply because it was regarded as something holy.
Yet the battle was lost and even the ark was captured by the enemy. Why?
What we didn't get to hear was that Eli's sons, Hophni and Phinehas, were immoral priests and were unfaithful to the Lord and so was the whole of Israel.
Hence their defeat was a punishment by the Lord and their bringing out the ark of the covenant from its sacred place was wrong; in other words they just wanted to "use" something that was holy and so they did what they liked with the ark. It was a sinful act to say the least.
Of course we would not think of "using" holy objects of our religion for our advantage and to get what we want.
Yet as much as we know it is wrong, is there any aspect of our lives that is wrong?
Have we been like Eli's sons, Hophin and Phinehas, who were immoral priests and unfaithful to the Lord and yet they kept offering unworthy and even sinful sacrifices.
Let us turn back to the Lord and ask Jesus to heal us of our sinfulness so that we will be faithful to the covenant He made with us.