"the Old Testament is the New concealed, but the New Testament is the Old revealed"
You would have to be quite biblically iliterate to reject this general principle.
Let's take a look at what the "storage box" contained, then we can look at what was so special about the Ark of the Covenant (just a storage box to you).
Luke wove some marvelous things into his Gospel that only a knowledgeable Jew would have understood—a Jew who knew Jewish Scripture and had eyes to see and ears to hear. One of the things he would have understood is
typology.We all know that the Old Testament is full of stories, people, and historical events. A
type is a person, thing, or event in the Old Testament that foreshadows something in the New Testament. It is like a taste or a hint of something that will be fulfilled or realized. Types are like pictures that come alive in a new and exciting way when seen through the eyes of Christ’s revelation.
The idea of typology is not new. Paul says that Adam was a type of the one who was to come—Christ (Rom 5:14). Early Christians understood that the Old Testament was full of types or pictures that were fulfilled or realized in the New Testament.
Here are a few more examples of biblical typology:
- Peter uses Noah’s ark as a type of Christian baptism (1 Pt 3:18-22).
- Paul explains that circumcision foreshadowed Christian baptism (Col 2:11-12).
- Jesus uses the bronze serpent as a type of his Crucifixion (Jn 3:14; cf. Nm 21:8-9).
- The Passover lamb prefigures the sacrifice of Christ (1 Cor 5:7).
- Paul says that Abraham "considered that God was able to raise men even from the dead; hence, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back" (Heb 11:19).
God loved his people and wanted to be close to them. He chose to do so in a very special way. The prayer of the people of God flourished in the shadow of the dwelling place of God’s presence on earth, the ark of the covenant and the temple, under the guidance of their shepherds, especially King David, and of the prophets". God instructed Moses to build a tabernacle surrounded by heavy curtains (Ex 25-27). Within the tabernacle he was to place an ark made of acacia wood covered with gold inside and out. Within the Ark of the Covenant was placed
1) a golden jar holding the manna,
2) Aaron’s rod that budded,
3) and the stone tablets of the covenant (Heb 9:4).
Were these "types" of Something to come?
I would like to elaborate a bit on this "overshadowing" business.
When the ark was completed, the glory cloud of the Lord (the
Shekinah Glory) covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle (Ex 40:34-35; Nm 9:18, 22). The verb for "to cover" or "to overshadow" and the metaphor of a cloud are used in the Bible to represent the presence and glory of God.
In the Old Testament, the cloud, now obscure, now luminous, reveals the living and saving God, while veiling the transcendence of his glory—with Moses on Mount Sinai, at the tent of meeting, and during the wandering in the desert, and with Solomon at the dedication of the temple. In the Holy Spirit, Christ fulfills these figures. The Spirit comes upon the Virgin Mary and "overshadows" her, so that she might conceive and give birth to Jesus. On the mountain of Transfiguration, the Spirit in the "cloud came and overshadowed" Jesus, Moses and Elijah, Peter, James and John, and "a voice came out of the cloud, saying, ‘This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!’" Finally, the cloud took Jesus out of the sight of the disciples on the day of his Ascension and will reveal him as Son of Man in glory on the day of his final coming. The glory of the Lord "overshadowed" the ark and filled the tabernacle.
What does this have to do with the price of eggs in China?
It’s easy to miss the parallel between the Holy Spirit overshadowing the ark and the Holy Spirit overshadowing Mary, between the Ark of the Old Covenant as the dwelling place of God and Mary as the new dwelling place of God.
God was very specific about every exact detail of the ark (Ex 25-30). It was a place where God himself would dwell (Ex 25:8).
It's not "just a storage box". God wanted his words—inscribed on stone—housed in a perfect container covered with pure gold within and without. How much more would he want his Word—Jesus—to have a perfect dwelling place! If the only begotten Son were to take up residence in the womb of a human girl, would he not make her flawless?
The Word in stone i
n the ark is a type of the Word made Flesh,
Jesus
The Rod of Aaron i
n the ark is a type of
Jesus the High Priest.
The manna in a gold bowl
in the ark is a type of
Jesus, the Bread of Life that came down from heaven.
The Virgin Mary is the living shrine of the Word of God, the Ark of the New and Eternal Covenant. In fact, St. Luke’s account of the Annunciation of the angel to Mary nicely incorporates the images of the tent of meeting with God in Sinai and of the temple of Zion. Just as the cloud covered the people of God marching in the desert (Nm 10:34; Dt 33:12; Ps 91:4) and just as the same cloud, as a sign of the divine mystery present in the midst of Israel, hovered over the Ark of the Covenant (Ex 40:35), so now the shadow of the Most High envelops and penetrates the tabernacle of the New Covenant that is the womb of Mary.
