Do You Have The Faith To Believe In Something That Can Heal You?
Good Morning Friends,
The sad storyline in Exodus and Numbers is of a people who made a profession of complained for forty years. As God was delivering them and providing for them, they whined. And honestly, I might have as well if I had been bitten by a snake and attributed my situation to God. Then a rather surprising thing happens to these Hebrew wilderness wanderers. They were asked to mature in the faith of Abraham and take hold of that promise and move toward its fulfillment so they would be prepared to enter the Promised Land. They had to make a decision that would change their perspective. A pole was raised up in the desert with a symbol of their cultural and physical adversary. Moses lifted a serpent on a pole and the people were asked to fix their gaze upon this shocking image. This same symbolism was taken up by Jesus. Do You Have The Faith To Believe In Something That Can Heal You?
Scripture: From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; but the people became impatient on the way. The people spoke against God and against Moses, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we detest this miserable food.” Then the Lord sent poisonous serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many Israelites died. The people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned by speaking against the Lord and against you; pray to the Lord to take away the serpents from us.” So Moses prayed for the people. And the Lord said to Moses, “Make a poisonous serpent, and set it on a pole; and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live.” So Moses made a serpent of bronze, and put it upon a pole; and whenever a serpent bit someone, that person would look at the serpent of bronze and live.
Numbers 21:4-9 (NRSV)
Again he said to them, “I am going away, and you will search for me, but you will die in your sin. Where I am going, you cannot come.” Then the Jews said, “Is he going to kill himself? Is that what he means by saying, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come’?” He said to them, “You are from below, I am from above; you are of this world, I am not of this world. I told you that you would die in your sins, for you will die in your sins unless you believe that I am he.” They said to him, “Who are you?” Jesus said to them, “Why do I speak to you at all? I have much to say about you and much to condemn; but the one who sent me is true, and I declare to the world what I have heard from him.” They did not understand that he was speaking to them about the Father. So Jesus said, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will realize that I am he, and that I do nothing on my own, but I speak these things as the Father instructed me. And the one who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what is pleasing to him.” As he was saying these things, many believed in him.
John 8:21-30 (NRSV)
Message: It is totally illogical to think that looking at a bronze image could heal anyone from snakebite, but that is exactly what God told the Hebrews to do. It took an act of faith in God’s plan for the people to be healed. So too we each in our wilderness journey come to a turning point in our lives. We are asked to decide who Jesus is for us. On the one hand we are sick and need healing and on the other, the shocking symbols of a snake on a pole and Christ impaled on a cross repulses us. For a monotheistic culture this is difficult territory for we risk idolatry and because of our ego we risk the pride of claiming our own actions as a means of salvation. We want to be considered good by God and yet the only good in us comes from God when we have the faith to repent and believe despite our unbelief. Friends, unless we see Jesus as he truly is, all man and all God, we will never have the courage to abandon your good works for his. So, fix your eyes upon Jesus on the cross as the means that God has provided for our deliverance. It is here we are challenged in a test of our faith. So, have faith.
Pray we realize that sin brings about our suffering. Pray we as sinners embrace the supreme act of God’s love in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. Pray we realize that without the cross there is no salvation. Pray we face up to the reality of sin and the means God has provided for saving us. Pray we do not seek things that do not save us. Pray we not take the things of God and twist them into idolatry. Pray we fix our eyes on Jesus who was high and lifted-up and raised-up for us. Pray we seek God though Jesus who has been given to us because of God’s love.
Blessings,
John Lawson
Daily Devotionals 