Undeniably Well

The Backstory. The Israelites were on their way to the Promised Land. By incredible, better-than-Hollywood sci-fi-like miraculous works of God, these former slaves were now free. Feeding hundreds of thousands of people every day is a serious challenge in our advanced culture where modern conveniences abound. What about them? God provided where Mrs. MacDonalds’ catering services could not! Every morning, the Israelites would wake up to discover a strange edible, bread-like substance that would nourish them for the day. They called it manna, which literally translates: what is it? Sort of like school cafeteria food. Adding to the weirdness, on most days it could not be kept overnight – if a person tried to hoard, the next day they found maggots in their meal. But on the Sabbath – the one day a week they were to do no work, the manna would stay fresh for an additional day, so that they wouldn’t have to gather on the day they were to rest. Crazy stuff.

I don’t know about you, but I think that kind of miraculous display every day would keep me pretty excited about walking with God. Moses probably thought the same. For awhile, that was the case.

But Israelites are people, too, and their humanity began to come through with great strength. They began complaining about the food. It probably started as minor moaning and groaning about wanting a little variety, or maybe some more pepper or perhaps some salsa on the side. But it went deeper and darker. By the time we read about it in Numbers 21:4-9, the Israelites were downright rude, basically stating that the food was garbage – detestable, disgusting. Nice.

Remember from a few weeks ago that as much as we hate this about ourselves, our primary conditioning has a way of presenting itself until it is fully addressed. So it was with these ancestors of ours – despite the incredible works of God in their midst, they still had a lot of learning to do, a lot of junk to work out of their system.

Their grumbling led them into destruction. The scriptures say that God sent snakes into their camp, with many dying as a result of their venomous attack. The snakes in question were probably carpet vipers, the most venomous of snakes in that region. There are a couple ways to understand this. The first way is to simply see it as black and white – God got ticked off at the whining people, and decided to give them a memorable object lesson that would impact their own lives. Another way to think about it this: as their focus shifted away from appreciating God’s daily miracle and consequently following God’s direction, they stumbled into a habitat of deadly snakes that they should have seen coming, but didn’t due to their blind arrogance. Either way you slice it, their focus led them to their destruction.

This happens in our lives all the time, to people of faith and people who have yet to consciously walk with God. Just like in the Garden of Eden, we find ourselves giving in to very natural, very human, very worldly self-centered ways of thinking. We begin to question God’s character and trustworthiness, and turn instead to old patterns and paradigms that never really worked well before for us, but are comfortable nonetheless. Wives go back to their abusive husbands. People turn to the bottle or the bong. Men turn to internet porn. People overeat. Or starve themselves. Balance and perspective is off – we become blind – and we find ourselves walking into places of pain, suffering, and sometimes even death. Not what we really want. Not anything close to life at its best.

The Israelites recognized this correlation between their bad attitude toward all things God and their suffering, and came to their senses. They admitted their mistake to God. They asked for forgiveness and help. This process is called repentance – literally turning away from one pattern and looking instead toward God.

God responded with loving grace and a path to salvation – healing in the fullest sense (which is what biblical salvation literally is: total and complete healing of every part of us). The method God used to provide healing was brilliant (imagine that!). God instructed Moses to make a snake made of bronze (or copper), and attach it to a long pole so that, when lifted up, people could see it. Then God issued a promise: all who would look upon the snake on the pole would be healed.

Why a snake on a pole? Because every time people would look at it, they would be reminded of what they had done, what the consequences were, and who was saving them. A snake reminded them of their pain and suffering caused by their decision to let their ugliness prevail, their old selves live again, turning their back on God and God’s ways that lead to life – sin. The snake would also remind them of the consequences of their decision – painful death from the venom. But as they looked at this serpent on a stick, their eyes would gaze heavenward – they could not miss the obvious truth that the healing to come was coming from God alone, who had the strength to overcome even the sting of death inflicted by the viper. Like I said: brilliant.

Even though God was the healer in this exchange, something was required of the people who were suffering if they wanted to live. The English language doesn’t really give us the full meaning of what was required. Interpreting the people’s responsibility as merely glancing at the lifted up snake is an easy error to make, and also perilous, because it suggests that this transaction was entirely passive, and that the snake-on-a-stick held magical powers all by itself. That’s not what’s happening here.

In the original Hebrew language, the kind of gaze being described is one filled with belief – faith that the exercise will heal. The idea is that if people casually looked at the fabricated snake, their situation would remain unchanged. But if they understood what was taking place – their need for repentance coupled by God’s saving grace – they would be healed. They would live another day. God made life possible, but the people had to choose it if they wanted to live. God provides, but in order for the provision to work, the people had to decide whether or not they believed, and if they did, embrace what was given.

The obvious application for this passage of scripture is for parents with picky-eater children who complain about the food presented to them for dinner. God has given us some sweet ammunition here to get kids to eat broccoli.

But wait – there’s more…

Fast forward roughly 1500 years. Jesus is speaking to Nicodemus, a highly respected, well-trained leader of the Jewish people in Jerusalem. Jesus pushes the conversation past the comfort zone and begins talking about how to experience the very best life possible. He calls this potentially abundant, meaning-filled life lived here on earth “eternal life.” He’s not talking about afterlife in this conversation at all – this talk is about getting the life we’ve always wanted.
So, in the third chapter of the Gospel of John, Jesus starts saying things that Nicodemus should understand, but doesn’t. Talk of being born again – that we have to die to our old ways if we want to live in new, better ways, and that the new, better ways are provided by the Holy Spirit – God’s presence and power. Nicodemus fails to get it, but Jesus keeps pressing on, hoping the dots will soon connect. Jesus said, “And as Moses lifted up the bronze snake on a pole in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him will have eternal life.”

Well that’s interesting.

Now that you know the story to which Jesus was referring, try to connect the dots.

Something is being lifted up on a pole. Since the reference point is the story in Numbers, we can safely assume that there was a need for such a thing to happen – pain, suffering, and death must have been pretty strong for such a measure to be taken.

The Bible verifies our experience along these lines. Only the most arrogant, in-denial person would suggest that we as a human race have “nailed it” – that we have so evolved that we are pretty much perfect. Hardly! We are acutely aware of our desperate disposition on a national scale – AIG bonuses and Bernie Madoff come to mind. We are fully aware of our capacity for perpetuating evil on a global scale – genocide, preventable disease, and hunger still thrive. And, if we’re honest, we know our depravity shows up in the mirror. Our poor patterns have caught up with us. Our decision to give in to our way has led us to many forms of snake habitats. Paul reminds the Jesus followers in Rome: all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God… [and] the wages of sin is death. Snake bites.

So God offered a remix of an old song: put something on a pole for people to see that will bring about a reminder and healing at the same time.

The something that God chose to use was the very best that humanity and God had to offer: Jesus Christ himself – Son of Man, Son of God. When people would gaze upon Jesus as he was being crucified, they would not be able to miss the point: look what we are capable of doing – look at what path we have chosen – we have so given ourselves over to destructive ways (sin itself), that we are killing the very best of us. The visual cannot be missed – collective sin hung on that pole-cross.

In an exchange with self-righteous religious people (John 8:31-47), Jesus told them that if they knew the truth, the truth would set them free. The truth to which he was referring was the cross – that it means on our own we are dying and that we need healing. Every time we look at the cross we need to be reminded of two things. The first thing we need to be reminded of is that we needed it. Just as the Israelites long ago recognized in the snake on the pole their waywardness, so we, too, need to eat humble pie every time we see the cross. The first thing we need to be reminded on when we see the cross is that we needed it – we still need it.

It was only some time after the resurrection that Jesus himself explained the full meaning of the cross – its communication of forgiveness. The meaning of Jesus’ death on a cross is deep and rich – so much so that volumes have been written, countless songs sung, and millions upon millions of lives have changed. But in our view today, in light of the context Jesus chose to use as a backdrop in his conversation with Nicodemus, I believe there is a correlative meaning here. The second thing we need to be reminded of when we look at the cross is that when God gets hold of the sin that has been killing us, he is powerful enough to overcome it. God forgives. God restores. God can take the symbol of our collective depravity and turn it into the very redemption we need. Death is transformed into life. That’s why the resurrection is such a big deal – death lost while life won. The worst was dished out, and it wasn’t enough to kill off life and hope.

Because Christ hanging on a cross is a generalized symbol for all sin for all time, we can claim the truth that all that we have ever done and ever will do has been addressed. The second thing we need to be reminded of is that we are forgiven.

So what do we do with this now?

Just as with the Israelites, the means of restoration through Jesus being lifted up is not passive. The cross you wear or see is not magic. A simple glance does nothing for you. Neither will lip service. Please note that over the last 150 years, there has been a concerted effort to create an entire approach to evangelism based on lip service. It finds its foundation in what is known as the Roman Road, which has as its climax the overused and misunderstood verse: all who call on the name of the Lord will be saved. Some Christians have been good salesman with this approach – I used to be one myself – and have gotten people to simply say a few phrases that sound pretty holy, and called them Christian.

But that’s not being fair to Paul’s teaching there or anywhere. And it certainly does not jibe with Jesus’ teaching on the subject.

Just as the original Hebrew language helps us understand that the gaze required was one of faith, belief, and understanding, so the Greek words used to describe Jesus’ Aramaic words lead us to the same conclusion. When Jesus speaks of being born again, of seeing him lifted up, and of believing, all of it was in reference to experiencing life now as it is meant to be. Getting our life back – the life we’ve always wanted. The way to embrace it was and is the same as it was for the Israelites – looking with faith, belief, and understanding at this thing God has done. Humbly coming to grips with the reality that we have an incredible capacity for sin, for destroying life. And looking at that reality (as we look heavenward) in the hands of a loving God who longs to restore us.

Have you come to grips with the meaning of the cross?

Are you dying, wondering how to deal with your sin, your brokenness? Have you finally come to a place where you’ve recognized your arrogance?

Confessing our need for the cross is confessing our sin to God, admitting that we don’t have it as together as we’ve let on, and that we are probably very fortunate to not know how many people our waywardness has hurt.

Do you recognize that God is fully aware of your reality? Do you understand that God knows you are scarred with snake bites, and are full of venom? Do you realize that God wants for you to live?

The beauty of this symbol is that it keeps us humble and hopeful at the same time. The cross demands humility, but lifts us out of humiliation with the love and grace of God that keeps us humbly grateful.

To look to the cross is to say to God I’m sorry, and I’m yours. I’ve had enough of running my own direction – right into pit of vipers after pit of vipers – and I am ready for a new direction. I choose your Kingdom, your Way, your Life. You.

I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in him. Then you will overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Think…
Did you enter into lip-service Christianity – simply making a confession of faith without really having a clue what it meant, hoping that it would somehow get you through the Pearly Gates? If so, how well did it deliver on the promise of an abundant life?

Do you still need the cross? Explain.

How does the cross remind you of your “snake bites” today?

How does the cross restore you to a healthy life?

What impact do you suppose a healthy understanding of the cross has on a person’s self esteem? Interpersonal relationships? Work ethic? Personal health? Drive to help others understand?

Who do you know that is struggling with a snake bite or two who need you to help them find healing? Pray for them, and pray that God gives you understanding and courage on how to help them.