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| Michelangelo, The Brazen Serpent, Sistine Chapel Ceiling, 1508-1512 |
Numbers 21:4-9
One of the recurring images of the Lenten Season is that of the Israelites’ forty years in the wilderness after the Exodus from Egypt. Both the Old and New Testaments repeatedly cite this period as a time of testing – during which the Israelites were often tried and found wanting. Instead of trusting the God who’d sent Moses to lead them, they frequently grumbled and complained, finding fault with Moses and accusing him of having led them out into the desert to die of thirst and starvation.
Three weeks ago on the First Sunday of Lent, the Gospel presented Jesus as effectively reversing Israel’s disobedience by successfully resisting the devil’s temptations during his forty days in the wilderness. And so, Christian Lenten devotion down through the centuries has urged us to avoid the negative example of Israel’s rebellion and to embrace instead the positive example of our Lord’s faithfulness and steadfastness.
Today’s Old Testament reading from the Book of Numbers continues this theme of Israel’s disobedience in the wilderness. This episode occurs near the end of the forty years of wandering, when the Israelites are about to make their final approach to the Promised land from the lands to the east of the River Jordan. Their route takes them out of the Sinai Peninsula by way of the northeastern tip of the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aqaba. For much of their forty years in the Sinai they have camped near oases where food and water have been at least available even if not plentiful. But now, again traversing an arid desert landscape, they begin to grumble and complain once more.
In the past, these incidents have come to fall into a standard pattern. First, the people find fault with Moses and accuse him of having led them into the desert to die. Second, in desperation and fear for his life, Moses prays to the Lord. And third, in response to Moses’ intercession, God provides a miraculous deliverance in some such form as manna from heaven, or water from the rock, and the people cease complaining.
This time, however, events take a slightly different turn. In response to the people’s grumbling and complaining, God sends a plague of fiery serpents, which bite the people so that many of them die. But the Israelites have actually learned something during their forty years in the wilderness, for now they recognize without being told that they’ve sinned and that the snakes are their punishment. And again, they’ve learned that the right course of action in such circumstances is to entreat Moses to pray to God for them.
The Lord’s response this time is interesting. He answers the prayer not by taking away the snakes, but by providing a remedy for the snakebite. The theological point is that even though sins can always be forgiven, the consequences of sin cannot always be undone. So, God directs Moses to make a bronze image of a snake and set it on a pole, so that anyone who’s bitten may look on the image and live.
Anthropologists have a field day with this story, pointing out how primitive religions often use images of dangerous animals to protect against those animals, and also how in many cultures snakes are symbols of medicine and healing. But in the Bible the serpent has a deeper significance still. Remember that in the second chapter of the Book of Genesis, it is the serpent who tempts Adam and Eve to disobey God in the Garden of Eden.
We see certain parallels between the two stories. In the wilderness, the Israelites are disobedient to God and so suffer death by fiery serpents, just as in the beginning Adam and Eve are tempted by the serpent to disobey God and so become subject to sin and death. In a sense, then, the grumbling of the Israelites in the wilderness symbolizes all human sin in all times and places, while the fiery serpents symbolize the poisonous consequences of that sin.
Why, then, should healing come by means of the visual image of a bronze serpent on a pole? The Greek Orthodox theologian Andreas Andreopoulos suggests that in order to be healed, the Israelites must face up to the reality of their sin and its consequences. The bronze serpent visually symbolizes their transgression, so they can look upon it, acknowledge their sin, and come to repentance. Only in this way can they find healing, forgiveness, and salvation.
This background helps explain the significance of our Lord’s words to Nicodemus in today’s Gospel reading from Saint John: “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.”
The healing of the snake-bitten Israelites by means of a bronze serpent on a pole foreshadows the healing of our fallen humanity by means of the cross of Christ. There is no more powerful symbol of the horror of human sin than the cross. When the Son of God came into the world, this is what we did to him. Yet, paradoxically, for this very reason the cross becomes the remedy for sin. Looking at the cross, we come face to face with the consequences of our rebellion against God. And in this way God gives us the opportunity to repent and return to him.
As we continue our journey through Lent towards Holy Week and Good Friday, we pause today to acknowledge that we’re often more like the disobedient Israelites in the wilderness than we care to admit. We have sinned; and the consequences of our sin are always with us, like nasty little vipers nipping at our ankles. Yet just as God gave the Israelites a remedy for snakebite in the form of a bronze snake on a pole, so he gives us a remedy for our sin in form of a cross. And when we look upon him who was lifted upon that cross for our sakes, we receive the assurance of eternal life.
John 3:14-21
One of the recurring images of the Lenten Season is that of the Israelites’ forty years in the wilderness after the Exodus from Egypt. Both the Old and New Testaments repeatedly cite this period as a time of testing – during which the Israelites were often tried and found wanting. Instead of trusting the God who’d sent Moses to lead them, they frequently grumbled and complained, finding fault with Moses and accusing him of having led them out into the desert to die of thirst and starvation.
Three weeks ago on the First Sunday of Lent, the Gospel presented Jesus as effectively reversing Israel’s disobedience by successfully resisting the devil’s temptations during his forty days in the wilderness. And so, Christian Lenten devotion down through the centuries has urged us to avoid the negative example of Israel’s rebellion and to embrace instead the positive example of our Lord’s faithfulness and steadfastness.
Today’s Old Testament reading from the Book of Numbers continues this theme of Israel’s disobedience in the wilderness. This episode occurs near the end of the forty years of wandering, when the Israelites are about to make their final approach to the Promised land from the lands to the east of the River Jordan. Their route takes them out of the Sinai Peninsula by way of the northeastern tip of the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aqaba. For much of their forty years in the Sinai they have camped near oases where food and water have been at least available even if not plentiful. But now, again traversing an arid desert landscape, they begin to grumble and complain once more.
In the past, these incidents have come to fall into a standard pattern. First, the people find fault with Moses and accuse him of having led them into the desert to die. Second, in desperation and fear for his life, Moses prays to the Lord. And third, in response to Moses’ intercession, God provides a miraculous deliverance in some such form as manna from heaven, or water from the rock, and the people cease complaining.
This time, however, events take a slightly different turn. In response to the people’s grumbling and complaining, God sends a plague of fiery serpents, which bite the people so that many of them die. But the Israelites have actually learned something during their forty years in the wilderness, for now they recognize without being told that they’ve sinned and that the snakes are their punishment. And again, they’ve learned that the right course of action in such circumstances is to entreat Moses to pray to God for them.
The Lord’s response this time is interesting. He answers the prayer not by taking away the snakes, but by providing a remedy for the snakebite. The theological point is that even though sins can always be forgiven, the consequences of sin cannot always be undone. So, God directs Moses to make a bronze image of a snake and set it on a pole, so that anyone who’s bitten may look on the image and live.
Anthropologists have a field day with this story, pointing out how primitive religions often use images of dangerous animals to protect against those animals, and also how in many cultures snakes are symbols of medicine and healing. But in the Bible the serpent has a deeper significance still. Remember that in the second chapter of the Book of Genesis, it is the serpent who tempts Adam and Eve to disobey God in the Garden of Eden.
We see certain parallels between the two stories. In the wilderness, the Israelites are disobedient to God and so suffer death by fiery serpents, just as in the beginning Adam and Eve are tempted by the serpent to disobey God and so become subject to sin and death. In a sense, then, the grumbling of the Israelites in the wilderness symbolizes all human sin in all times and places, while the fiery serpents symbolize the poisonous consequences of that sin.
Why, then, should healing come by means of the visual image of a bronze serpent on a pole? The Greek Orthodox theologian Andreas Andreopoulos suggests that in order to be healed, the Israelites must face up to the reality of their sin and its consequences. The bronze serpent visually symbolizes their transgression, so they can look upon it, acknowledge their sin, and come to repentance. Only in this way can they find healing, forgiveness, and salvation.
This background helps explain the significance of our Lord’s words to Nicodemus in today’s Gospel reading from Saint John: “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.”
The healing of the snake-bitten Israelites by means of a bronze serpent on a pole foreshadows the healing of our fallen humanity by means of the cross of Christ. There is no more powerful symbol of the horror of human sin than the cross. When the Son of God came into the world, this is what we did to him. Yet, paradoxically, for this very reason the cross becomes the remedy for sin. Looking at the cross, we come face to face with the consequences of our rebellion against God. And in this way God gives us the opportunity to repent and return to him.
As we continue our journey through Lent towards Holy Week and Good Friday, we pause today to acknowledge that we’re often more like the disobedient Israelites in the wilderness than we care to admit. We have sinned; and the consequences of our sin are always with us, like nasty little vipers nipping at our ankles. Yet just as God gave the Israelites a remedy for snakebite in the form of a bronze snake on a pole, so he gives us a remedy for our sin in form of a cross. And when we look upon him who was lifted upon that cross for our sakes, we receive the assurance of eternal life.
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