Mary living at the Temple is linked to her being symbolically the ‘Ark of the New Covenant’. Assumption is a belief connected not only to people, but also to the Ark of the Covenant.
The Ark of the Covenant was a wooden case covered with pure gold. The lid was elaborately designed with two cherubim. God spoke to Moses from between the two cherubim on the Ark’s cover. Inside it contained the two tablets of the Ten Commandments as well as Aaron’s rod and a pot of manna.
The Ark was carried ahead of the Israelites as they moved out of Egypt towards the Promised Land. When encamped, it was kept in the tent of meeting or tabernacle.
When they arrived in the land of Israel, the Ark of the Covenant was kept in a shrine at Bethel. The location of Bethel is now the West Bank close to Jerusalem. Elijah and Elisha passed by Bethel just before Elijah was taken up.
King David decided to build a temple in Jerusalem to house the Ark. The Temple was finally built by Solomon and at the inauguration the Ark was taken by priests into the Holy of holies.
In 587 BC the Babylonian conquest of Israel led to the destruction of the Temple and the exile of the Jews, carried off to Babylon. The Ark was not taken to Babylon. Some say it was hidden in a cave and never found again, but Orthodox Jews believe it was assumed into heaven.
What actually happened to the Ark of the Covenant is recorded in the second book of Maccabees which is a book belonging to the Apocrypha in Orthodox and Catholic Bibles.
This is a shortened version of 2 Maccabees 2:4-8:
According to the official records the prophet Jeremiah, in obedience to a divine revelation, issued orders that the tent and the Ark should accompany him to the mountain that Moses ascended to view the promised land. Upon arriving there Jeremiah found a cave where he placed the tent, the Ark and the alter of incense, after which he blocked off the entrance with stones. Some of his companions came up later with the intention of marking out the path, but they were unable to find it. When Jeremiah learned of this, he rebuked them and said “This place is to remain hidden until God has compassion on his scattered people and gathers them together.” Then the glory will appear as at the time of Moses and Solomon.
Jewish Orthodox belief is that the Ark of the Covenant was taken up from the place where it was hidden, and assumed bodily into heaven. God took it away because those on earth did not have a level of holiness that could accomodate this holy container.
In Revelation chapter 11 after the blast on the 7th trumpet it is proclaimed that “the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ” and at verse Rev. 11:19
“God’s temple in heaven was opened, and within his temple was seen the ark of the covenant. And there came flashes of lightning, rumblings, peels of thunder, an earthquake and a great hail storm.”
The apostle John wrote Revelation. This verse indicates that John believed with other Jews that the Ark had been taken up to heaven and was still there awaiting the coming of the Kingdom of God.
When the Jews returned from exile they built the Second Temple. This was greatly expanded by Herod into a huge Temple complex with outer courts and inner courts, and at the centre, the Holy of holies separated by a long curtain. But the Holy of holies was empty. There was no Ark of the Covenant, no tablets of the Law and no shekhinah glory – for the light of God was elsewhere.
Jesus was the fulfilment of the Law represented by the stone tablets of the Ten Commandments. Mary was the bearer of the Christ. She was the holy receptacle who brought Christ into the world to share our human nature. Just as the Ark was the golden container of the tablets of the Law, Mary was the container bearing the Christ. In this way she is the Ark of the New Covenant.
As God’s glory rested on the Ark, God’s favour rested on Mary, and she was full of grace.
The most sacred place of the Temple was the Holy of holies, but while in the First Temple it contained the Ark of the Covenant, in the Second Temple it was empty. Mary living as a child in the Second Temple had brought back the Ark; she was the Ark, the container that would bring back the presence of God to this world.
At the exile, the Ark of the Covenant was buried in a cave by the prophet Jeremiah, and disappeared. At the end of her life, Mary died and was buried in a cave – her tomb was found to be empty three days later. The Ark and Mary were assumed into heaven because they were the containers of God.
Merry and True 