Numbers 21:4-9 From Mount Hor the Israelites 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.
John 3:14-21 Jesus said, “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.
“Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.”
Reflection Poor Moses. After all the plagues he handled to lead God’s people out of Egypt (bloody water, frogs, lice, flies, boils, hail, locusts), instead of being grateful for their newfound freedom the people “become impatient,” complain about their miserable food (who wants manna? we want meat), and “speak against Moses and God.” The poisonous serpents of faithlessness and unconscionable complaining corrupt the hearts and minds of the people Israel and they suffer in the poison of their own protests.
We know how this plays out. Someone whines and grumbles about the way things are. Pretty soon a chorus gathers around the complaint. Social media gets the message and ignites a match. And in a timeless second a protest is roaring with people swallowing their own poison and dying in the wilderness. This is the story of Moses and the moaning Israelites. This is the story of the fickle crowds in Jerusalem demanding, “Crucify him! Crucify him!” on the fateful day for Jesus. This is the story of our country today, with volleys of revolts erupting from the extreme right and flaring back from the far left.
As if standing in a pit of poisonous snakes, we are split into feverish corners until a crowd is bent on an arc toward destruction. From the ten thousand feet above the ground perspective we can no longer distinguish one side from the other because we are all pointing poison fingers and looking for someone to blame for being stuck between the way things used to be and the promised land. Still, we are not condemned to this agony.
Looking to Moses we discover a way out of this hopeless hostility. Praying on behalf of the Israelites Moses first turns to God then offers the snaky masses something new to look at. Lifting up the bronze serpent Moses invites the cranky crowd to turn their eyes to healing rather than complaining and yearning for yesterdyear.
This was the first time the image of a serpent entwined on a pole enters humanity’s imagination. The Israelites are stuck between Egypt and the promised land, looking with longing backward to the way things used to be until Moses gives them something new to look at. The image of a serpent wrapped around a pole came to be associated with the Greek god Asclepius, the god of healing and medicine.* Today we see the symbol associated with the World Health Organization, The American Medical Association and on the sides of ambulances. What does this perennial symbol have to do with us? I believe it invites us to turn our eyes to healing rather than complaining and yearning for the way things used to be.
Four hundred years after Moses Jesus is still trying to get God’s people to stop protesting and see something new. Much like Moses lifting the serpent in the wilderness Jesus offers himself to be lifted up as something new to look at and be healed. I can almost hear the duet, Moses and Jesus pleading, “People, don’t you see? If you choose to look at the bronze serpent instead of the miserable food and your thirst to arrive at the promised land, if you choose to look at Jesus’ walk through suffering in the company of God, you choose life. You are healed.”
What do we choose to look at? To what do we give our attention?
As social beings in the twenty-first century we can protest forever about our rights; economic, social, cultural, civil and political. We can whip ourselves into frenzies, wag our biting fingers like so many venomous snakes or we can choose to look at something new, something risen from our wilderness journey between the idealized way things used to be and the promised land. Let us not forget, the Israelites were slaves to the Egyptians before Moses led them into the wilderness. Why would they want to go back to that? Likewise, when we remove our collective rose colored glasses we must confess, our past is not pristine.
Here is the thing, poisonous protests rise on both sides of the aisle and sing every note on the scale. Since the beginning of the beginning this has been our story. Do we really want to continue suffering in the poison of our own protests? Do we really want to choose death and listen to ourselves speaking against God and Moses and crying “Crucify him?” How many hundreds or thousands of years before we choose to look at something new rising in the wilderness between the way things used to be and the promised land?
Today is a turning point in our journey. We are being led out of Egypt, out of the reach of Covid-19 into the wilderness where we will either find or lose ourselves while wandering between the way things used to be and the promised land. It is time us to open our eyes to see something new. This is a matter of life or death.
If you found this post to be meaningful please share by clicking on icons below. Thank you.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rod_of_Asclepius
