A Saving Serpent?

Old Mystic, March 22, 2009
Numbers 21:4-9

Summary

God has spoken and continues to speak to us through symbols that point to His grace, his forgiveness, and the gift of life. As the serpent lifted up in the wilderness became the symbol of God's compassion, love, forgiveness, and salvation, it also points to God’s supreme revelation: Jesus Christ, our Savior, Redeemer, God with us.

Sermon

Symbols are such an important part of our lives because they point to many cherished things, some that are religious and therefore sacred, and others that engage customs, values, experiences. Many of the symbols that are meaningful to us are cultural. For Argentineans, for example, drinking mate, the South American green tea that is drank sipping from a metal straw out of a hollow gourd filled with the infusion, is a powerful symbol of friendship and community as the drink is passed around in a circle and everybody drinks from the same straw. My experience tells me that the simple idea of sharing the straw makes most Americans cringe!

Religious symbols are more or less clearly defined by traditions. For example, crosses, rosaries, icons, images, and statues are symbols in the Christian tradition that connect us with the Divinity in some sort of way. Needless to say, for us as Protestants and as Baptists, none of these symbols has power in itself (sacramental power); they are just finite symbols that point to ultimate reality and for that reason we must understand their limitations without diminishing the power of the truth they point to. Robert Neville, professor of Theology and Philosophy at Boston University, would refer to them as broken symbols: they effectively engage us in spite of their known limitations.

When we think of a serpent as a symbol we understand better its brokenness. Throughout history and across cultures serpents have conveyed many different meanings such as life, death, protection, danger, and even the power of healing, as in the symbol of modern medicine. In the Christian tradition, the serpent of the Garden of Eden has been a symbol of temptation, deception, and evil and clearly associated with Satan. But at the same time, as we look at today’s story of the Israelites in the wilderness, it becomes a symbol of compassion, love, grace, forgiveness, healing, and salvation. The poisonous, killer serpent has become the saving serpent.

Life in the desert was not easy for the Israelites. In spite of the fact that they had been nomadic, the struggles for survival were taking a toll on them as they kept wandering for years. It must be hard to have to continuously strive to find food and water where they are so scarce. God had provided manna (like coriander seed that tasted like wafers made with honey) and when they got tired of it, quails. God made fresh, drinking water flow from a rock. God protected them and handed them their enemies in battle like when they defeated the Canaanite king of Arad. Yet, they were tired and when people are tired they complain.

They complained in spite of the fact that they had much to be thankful for. Had they forgotten how God brought them out slavery in Egypt? How God protected them from Pharaoh’s army dividing the waters of the Red Sea or how God led them through the wilderness guiding them by pillars of cloud and fire? It seems that either they were not clear about their purpose and destiny, the promise of the land flowing milk and honey, or that they had lost their faith. Lack of faith brings about lack of vision and lack of vision, the loss of meaning, and the loss of meaning, despair and weariness. And people weary and in despair complain.

The Israelites’ complained because they had to go a long way; the text says that they “became inpatient on the way” which was God’s choice and, as usual, it was made clear through Moses, their leader. And their complaint grew to the point when they “spoke against God and against Moses.” “Why have you brought us out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water and we detest this miserable food.” So the complaints turned to be sinful as they spoke against God and God’ chosen leader. The narrative is blatant: God punished their slandering with a plague of poisonous snakes that killed many of them.

It may be tempting to focus on the evidence suggested by the text that death and suffering are ways that God has to punish sin. But this is an ancient text for a people with a limited understanding about the nature and character of God. It is perhaps easier to admonish ourselves about the benefits of obedience, submission, and compliance to what we are commanded. That is the simple way. But that view would prevent us from seeing God’s abundant grace, His love, and compassion. We need not regard our sufferings as a punishment for our misdeeds though they may very well related to our own mistakes and failures; we must focus on a God that in his love will always have a way for us—a way to save us.

The Israelites changed their minds—that is, they repented. They decided to try a different way; after all, complaints and slandering had not worked. They recognized that they had sinned and went to Moses to ask him to pray to God so the serpents would go away from them. So Moses prayed and God instructed him to make a bronze poisonous serpent and set it on a pole. The serpents did not go away, but whoever was bit by a one of them would look at the bronze symbol and be healed and protected. The very serpent that brought so much suffering to the people became the symbol of salvation.

John the Evangelist picked up this symbol in his Gospel when he said, “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes may have eternal life.” It is indeed a broken symbol since many of us would find it to be not the most appropriate symbol to point to Jesus. But at the same time it is an indication of the many ways God has to bring us into his grace. The people of Israel had to set their eyes on the bronze serpent lifted up for their salvation, healing, and protection. We, 21st century onlookers, as many generations preceding us, can look at Jesus Christ, “the pioneer and perfecter of our faith who… endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.”

Unfortunately, so often we need to be reminded by our own snakes, the snakes that bite us, to remember about God’s love and grace. How many times we only come to God when the desperate circumstance of our lives make us first complain, then slander or even curse, go into depression and despair, and only in the end cry for help? God will find the most diverse, creative, and surprising ways to point to Jesus Christ. God wants us to connect with Him and with His Son in whom He offers salvation and healing.

We are in the Lenten season. It is a time of the year that powerfully points to Christ. It is symbolic of the passion of our Lord, his journey to the cross, his suffering, and ultimately of his victory over sin and death. It is perhaps also a time to pray as the Israelites asked Moses in the wilderness; a good time to lift a prayer of repentance and of changing our minds. and to look in the direction where God is pointing to: Jesus Christ, our savior, our redeemer, and our healer.