(An audio version of this sermon can be found at https://www.spreaker.com/episode/numbers-21-verses-4-9-the-serpent-on-the-pole-and-our-saviour-on-the-cross–58970136)
Do you ever get tired of people who do nothing but complain? If so, then perhaps you can understand why God sent the poisonous snakes among the Israelites in Numbers 21:4-9.
These verses describe the last recorded occasion on which the Israelites complained about the food God provided and their longing for the good food they had in Egypt. The other times they complained God provided food and water, but on this occasion God responded by sending poisonous snakes. Many people died from the snake bites.
All of us complain when things do not go our way. We get upset with long lines or slow drivers, but the real reason why we are impatient might actually be because of God. God’s harsh response to the complaining of the Israelites is especially unnerving when we consider how often we show the same impatience in our lives. God often responds by sending “poisonous snakes” to stop us dead in our tracks, to confront us with the truth of the futility of thinking we can simply go our own way. God wants us to trust Him more than anything else in the world. When we don’t, we are in big trouble.
We can appreciate the impulse behind the complaining. It’s easy to get caught up in the doom and gloom of life, but life goes on. We worry about failing relationships, safety for our families and in our communities, and justice for the marginalized and the others in our midst. It can feel like being on high alert all the time. We can find ourselves fearful, praying to God to take the snakes in our lives away.
Today we are on the move as well. We are navigating our next steps, seeking to find ourselves in God’s plan for our lives, and hoping to make sense of our own lives. Just like those who have gone before us, our exhaustion, hunger, crabbiness, anger, and doubt cause us to complain, cry out, and blame. Our cries lead to a response from God because we are also God’s beloved.
The reason people complain is not that they have less, but that they appreciate less. When we look at the role God’s grace plays in every good thing we have which is a gift from Him, we understand why He hates complaining so much. It is a slap in the face to God to tell Him that what He has chosen for us in His perfect wisdom does not match what we think should happen.
The Israelites were afraid of the unknown. They were afraid of what awaited them on their journey. Fear corrodes faith and cuts off our pathways for giving and receiving grace and mercy. If it is left untreated long enough, it leads to hatred, hardness of heart and soul, and eventually death.
There is nothing wrong with being discouraged, but discouragement can lead to something worse. The Israelites complained against God and against Moses first, then they began to complain about everything, especially the bread from God, and this became outright rebellion. They did not trust God with their future, just like many people today do not trust God with their future. Many Israelites died because of this faithless attitude, just like many people today are in danger of dying because of the same attitude.
This story shows two aspects of the nature of sin. On the one hand, in the fact that the Israelites were bitten by fiery serpents, God tells us that sin is like the mortal bite of a poisonous snake. Sin bites like a serpent and stings like an adder. It inflicts terrible wounds on our souls. To be a sinner means to stand in urgent need of healing. With snake bites, time is crucial if a life is to be saved. This aspect of sin calls forth God’s compassion and pity, and the tender care of the Great Physician Himself.
On the other hand, in the fact that the serpents were sent to Israel as a punishment for their murmurings and rebelliousness, God tells us that sin is rebellion against God and His good and perfect will. Often we do not want to see the necessity for rebirth, because it would be too costly for us. We resist the truth because our hearts are in rebellion against God, much as the Israelites were.
Moses became the people’s mediator with God. When the people confessed their sin of speaking against God, Moses was able to intercede for them. God heard Moses’ plea and told Moses to make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole. Those who looked on this bronze statue were healed of the snake bites and lived, just like we have to fix our gaze on Jesus if we want to be healed of our sin and live eternally. The choice to look in faith brought life instead of death to the Israelites, just like accepting Christ in faith gives us eternal life instead of eternal separation from God.
The snake was a symbol of all that repelled the people of Israel. As such, the bronze serpent atop a pole was a dramatic, horrible symbol, but only those who would look at it would live. The snake on the pole has the effect of Christ on the cross-visually horrible, but the only means of salvation. Moses kept the bronze figure as a reminder of the people’s sin and God’s provision. Eventually, however, Hezekiah destroyed the serpent because the people had turned it into an idol.
In John 3:14-21, Jesus explains to Nicodemus how his role differs from that of the serpents in the wilderness. Jesus did not come to be like the biting serpents of judgment of death, subject to the law. Jesus came not to condemn the world but to save it.
It can be hard to understand that the kind of love that will save us might hurt us first. The Israelites had to see in the serpents the result of their own failure to trust the God who delivered them from slavery, sustained them in the desert, and promised to guide them into a new homeland. The bronze serpent forced them to stare the poison down until they saw in the grief, the anger, and the judgment the unending mercy of a God whose love is vast but tough, deep but demanding. It is a love that will heal but also expose truth-truth that hurts.
The bronze serpent is both reminder and remedy. It is a reminder that when we trust in our own way and doubt the guidance and provision of God, we will meet death. We can’t cure ourselves, and we can’t lead ourselves. The bronze serpent reminds us of the choices that humanity has made. Jesus is lifted up as a reminder of the choice God has made.
Sometimes we go to great lengths to avoid looking at what is causing pain, even death, in our own lives and communities. Is it because if we look at the problem head-on, chances are good that we will have to deal with it? Lent is a good time to come clean about the things that are the real sources of pain and death in our lives and relationships, and to ask God’s help to be delivered from them. God can take the very worst thing and turn it around so that we can heal, stop the death, and see each other again without fear.
The provision God made for Israel is the same as the provision of the cure for sin. The bronze serpent represents sin judged. As Israel was given this symbol of substitutionary atonement, so also Christ, for our sakes, and for our healing, was made in the likeness of sinful flesh, and made sin for us, and was lifted up from the earth, when He bore in His own body the judgment of a holy God upon sin. In other words, the bronze serpent foreshadowed the ultimate work of salvation that Jesus accomplished for us on the cross.
Bibliography
- Jeremiah, David: The Jeremiah Study Bible: New King James Version (Brentwood, TN: Worthy Publishing; 2013; p. 202)
- Philip, J., & Ogilvie, L.J.: The Preacher’s Commentary Series, Vol. 4: Numbers (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Inc., 1987; pp. 215-218)
- Stanley, C.F.: The Charles F. Stanley Life Principles Bible: New King James Version (Nashville, TN: Nelson Bibles; 2005)
- MacArthur, J.F. Jr.: The MacArthur Study Bible: New American Standard Bible (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers; 2006)
- David Mainse, “Look.” Retrieved from www.100words.ca
- George Young, “A Bronze Snake on a Pole.” Retrieved from today@thisistoday.net
- Anthony Robinson, “Look.” Retrieved from dailydevotional@ucc.org
- Kaji Dousa, “On the Stick of Change.” Retrieved from dailydevotional@ucc.org.
- Debi Thomas, “Looking Up.” Retrieved from www.journeywithjesus.net
- Dr. Paul Chappell, “Stop Complaining.” Retrieved from daily@dailyintheword.org
- Meg Jenista, “Numbers 21:4-9 Commentary.” Retrieved from https://cepreaching.org/authors/meg-jenista/
- Emily Roy-Hegener, “Numbers 21:4-9.” Retrieved from communic@luthersem.edu.
- The Rev. Dr. William E. Flippin, Jr., “The Remedy: Look, Lift Up, and Live.” Retrieved from www.day1.org
Sermons From My Heart 