Mary, Ark of the Covenant

From the Book of Exodus (chs. 25-27), we learn that God commanded Moses to build a tabernacle surrounded by heavy curtains in which he was to place an ark constructed out of acacia wood covered with gold. Inside the Ark of the Covenant, the Israelites were to place a golden jar filled with the manna from heaven, Aaron's rod, and the stone tablets of the covenant (i.e., the Ten Commandments) (Hebrews 9:4). From thenceforward, the glory cloud of the Lord, also known as the Shekinah Glory, covered the tent and the Ark (Exodus 40:34-35; Nehemiah 9:18, 22). In the Bible, we often see this word, Shekinah, which means "to cover" or "to overshadow" representing the presence and glory of God the Father as it first protected and surrounded the Ark of the Covenant in the Old Testament and as it accompanies Mary in the New Testament.

After Moses's death, Joshua located the Ark of the Covenant in Shiloh in the Promised Land where it remained for more than 200 years. In a battle with the Philistines, the Philistines captured the ark (1 Samuel 5:1-6:12). When King David went to retrieve it (1 Sm 6:1-2), one of his envoys, Uzzah, was struck dead when he accidentally touched the sacred Ark which was covered with the Shekinah cloud of God's glory. (And, where Uzzah was killed instantaneously upon contact with the Shekinah, Joseph, Mary's husband deliberately refrains from "touching" Mary, surrounded as she was by God's Glory Cloud.) When David finally approaches the Ark, scripture tells us that he danced and leapt in front of the Ark before relocating it to the sacred city of Jerusalem (2 Samuel 6:9-14). Here, one cannot help but think of St. John the Baptist who leaps in Elizabeth's womb at the arrival of Jesus in the new Ark of the Covenant, Mary.

In those days Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country, to a city of Judah, and she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and she exclaimed with a loud cry, "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And why is this granted me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For behold, when the voice of your greeting came to my ears, the babe in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord." (Luke 1:39-45)

Like David who leaves the Ark in the "hill country of Judea" for three months, Mary remains with her cousin, Elizabeth, in the city of Judah for three months as well. While David danced at the sight of the Ark, he rejoiced by saying, "How can the ark of the Lord come to me?" Later, Elizabeth uses the same phraseology when she asks, "Why is this granted me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?" When Mary presents Jesus at the temple (Luke 1:56, 2:21-22), she fulfills David's typological example when he returns the Ark of the Covenant to the temple in Jerusalem (2 Sm 6:12; 1 Kings 8:9-11). Time and time again, the Old Testament prefigures the New Testament in beautiful and profound ways, and one of the most convincing typologies is the preparation for Mary as the new Ark of the Covenant in the Christian tradition.

The prophet Jeremiah, after receiving a prophecy from God, sealed the Ark in a cave in the same mountain where Moses received his divine inheritance from God and thereby declared: "The place shall be unknown until God gathers his people together again and shows his mercy. And then the Lord will disclose these things, and the glory of the Lord and the cloud will appear, as they were shown in the case of Moses, and as Solomon asked that the place should be specially consecrated" (2 Maccabees 2:4-8). And the Ark will never be relocated, because just as Jesus is the fulfillment of the law of Moses--the Word made incarnate in a person, a man by the name of Jesus; Mary is similarly the fulfillment of scripture--the Ark made incarnate in a person, a woman by the name of Mary. Mary holds the new covenant of Jesus in her womb and thereby becomes the Ark of the New Covenant of Christ.

This is a beautiful passage I cite directly from Catholic Answers: "The Old Testament tells us that one item was placed inside the Ark of the Old Covenant while in the Sinai wilderness: God told Moses to put the stone tablets with the Ten Commandments inside the ark (Dt 10:3-5). Hebrews 9:4 informs us that two additional items were placed in the Ark: "a golden urn holding the manna, and Aaron's rod that budded." Notice the amazing parallels: In the ark was the law of God inscribed in stone; in Mary's womb was the Word of God in flesh. In the ark was the urn of the manna, the bread from heaven that kept God's people alive in the wilderness; in Mary's womb is the Bread of Life come down from heaven that brings eternal life. In the ark was the rod of Aaron, the proof of true priesthood; in Mary's womb is the true priest. In the third century, St. Gregory the Wonder Worker said that Mary is truly an ark--"gold within and gold without, and she has received in her womb all the treasures of the sanctuary."