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. So, even as we face our own health issues today, Do We Have The Faith To Stop Complaining, Overcome Our Instincts, And Be Healed And Saved?
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)
Do not hide your face from me in the day of my distress. Incline your ear to me; answer me speedily in the day when I call. For my days pass away like smoke, and my bones burn like a furnace. My heart is stricken and withered like grass; I am too wasted to eat my bread. Because of my loud groaning my bones cling to my skin. I am like an owl of the wilderness, like a little owl of the waste places. I lie awake; I am like a lonely bird on the housetop. All day long my enemies taunt me; those who deride me use my name for a curse. For I eat ashes like bread, and mingle tears with my drink, because of your indignation and anger; for you have lifted me up and thrown me aside. My days are like an evening shadow; I wither away like grass. But you, O Lord, are enthroned forever; your name endures to all generations. You will rise up and have compassion on Zion, for it is time to favor it; the appointed time has come. For your servants hold its stones dear, and have pity on its dust. The nations will fear the name of the Lord, and all the kings of the earth your glory. For the Lord will build up Zion; he will appear in his glory. He will regard the prayer of the destitute, and will not despise their prayer. Let this be recorded for a generation to come, so that a people yet unborn may praise the Lord: that he looked down from his holy height, from heaven the Lord looked at the earth, to hear the groans of the prisoners, to set free those who were doomed to die; so that the name of the Lord may be declared in Zion, and his praise in Jerusalem,
Psalm 102:2-21 (NRSV)
He said, “If you will listen carefully to the voice of the Lord your God, and do what is right in his sight, and give heed to his commandments and keep all his statutes, I will not bring upon you any of the diseases that I brought upon the Egyptians; for I am the Lord who heals you.”
Exodus 15:26 (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.
And So, In today’s scripture Jesus uses a play on the word “lift up” in order to point to the fact that His death for sin on the cross would accomplish the highest glory of His earthly life. Normally the Greek word for “lift up” means “to lift up on high, to exalt” and metaphorically it means “to raise to the very summit of opulence and prosperity, to raise to dignity, honor and happiness.” Here it takes on that special meaning. Jesus is the right medicine. But let us face the problem we have with this story. We do not like comparing Jesus the man and Jesus our Lord to a snake. Our idea is of the snake in the garden with Adam and Eve and we reject this idea, at least at first, of linking Jesus to the snake…to sin. But Jesus compares Himself to a snake and for that reason alone we need to pay a little more attention to this story. To make sense of it we need to put it in the spiritual and historical context of Moses on the journey to the Promised Land and us on our journey as well. Perhaps then it will seem less bizarre. You see both the Hebrews in the desert and we today are the beneficiaries of a God who gives and gives and gives getting in return whines and whines and whines. I think we can and should relate to that unhealthy reality. What we deserve is punishment and that is what we are going to get if we do not learn from God’s response and solution. Sure, God could have just taken the snakes away, but instead He offers a better way that gives us the dignity of choice. God provides a way for people to survive the bite of the apple…the bite of the snake and live. God offers a simple and merciful way to save us from our sins…from death. Sure, it looks like a placebo effect but guess what? If we believe it works. We are to look up and live, for when we have Christ all the faith needed for our healing is provided.
Pray we understand the message of the serpent and the cross…of life…mercy… forgiveness and love. Pray we are not rebellious. Pray we do not reject Jesus. Pray we raise our eyes to the offer of salvation. Pray we believe that Jesus redeems. Pray we believe in a glorified Jesus. Pray we face our deliverance. Pray we repent. Pray we look to Jesus and ask forgiveness. Pray that the poison leaves our system and the healing begin. Pray we take up our cross…His will for us… and choose to follow Him out of our desert. Pray we do not try God’s patience. Pray we believe in Christ’s deity as a matter of life and death. 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 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 