Don Friesen
I enjoy reading the letters to the editor in our denominational papers; it's a forum for spirited opinions--an outlet to vent our opinions and frustrations when other avenues may be closed to us. However, not everyone enjoys the letters. This week a reader wrote in, suggesting that the paper discontinue printing letters to the editor, saying, "I strongly recommend the Readers Say portion of The Mennonite be discontinued. ...opinions, disagreements and controversies (should) no longer be printed. Many Mennonites are already so critical. Readers Say gives opportunity to stir the criticism and negative reactions." (The Mennonite, March 18, 2003, page 5) Isn't it good that we provide this opportunity for readers to complain about the complaining?
I complained myself a few weeks ago--about winter--which in turn prompted complaints from several of you that winter was actually your favourite season. You can have it! Now, I admit that once I'm in a cranky mood it's easy to complain about everything, and if you press me, I don't know that I like the other seasons of the year much better! Spring is messy. Summer is hot and humid. Autumn is probably my favourite season, but only if the temperature is between 18 and 20 degrees and the sun is shining.
Moses' Snake-on-a-Stick
Complaining is actually quite biblical. There's a lot of it in the Bible. God doesn't like it, but that never stopped the Israelites from moaning and groaning about their lot in life, and in our reading from the book of Numbers they're at it again! Numbers tells us that "they set out ...to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; but the people became impatient on the way. (They) 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.'" (Numbers21:4-5)
Interesting complaint! They complain about the miserable food they detest, right after they've complained about having no food at all! Earlier in their wilderness trek God grew so impatient with the barrage of food complaints that He told them, after giving them the food they wanted, "You shall eat not only one day, or two days, or five days, or ten days, or twenty days, but for a whole month--until it comes out of your nostrils and becomes loathsome to you...." (Numbers 11: 19-20) Who says God doesn't have a sense of humour?
It wasn't the first time the Israelites had complained (Exodus 17:3; Numbers 11:20; 14:3; 20:5), and it certainly wasn't the last, for soon after this their camping spot became infested with snakes! Snakes hid under their cooking pots, coiled around tent pegs, and slithered into their sleeping bags. It was horrible! It put a stop to the complaints about the food, but it was horrible! The wilderness, which once had been Israel's refuge, became its graveyard as the fangs of the snakes sank deep, injecting deadly poison, and many died.
What I find bizarre about this passage is that the people credit God for sending the snakes. I can't quite imagine that God would send poisonous snakes among His chosen people, but that's the way they remembered it. Some felt they deserved it, saying to Moses, "We have sinned by speaking against the Lord and against you; pray to the Lord to take away the serpents...." (Numbers 21:7) So Moses prayed, God answered his prayer, and then you have this curious instruction to fashion a serpent out of bronze and to mount it on a pole, and from then on anyone bitten by a snake will not die if they look at this strange object. (21:8-9)
An Object Lesson . . .
It's a curious story, and perhaps one that would have remained in Old Testament obscurity were it not for its reappearance in other parts of the Bible, including our Gospel reading. John, chapter 3, is a classic and beautiful passage telling us that God loves the world, that "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." (John 3:16) However, Jesus prefaces this classic expression of Christian salvation with reference to the Old Testament snakes, saying, "...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." (3:14-15)
Remember that our Gospel reading takes place in the context of a conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus. Nicodemus had failed to grasp Jesus' words about being "born from above" (John 3:3-10), so Jesus tried again, by means of an object lesson about snakes. Nicodemus would have known the story since childhood, and perhaps the lesson Jesus was trying to convey to Nicodemus was this: Imagine how one of our ancestors felt after being bitten by a snake, and feeling the deadly poison course through his veins he remembered Moses' instructions, looked up at the bronze serpent, and lived to tell the story! He'd feel as if he had received a new lease on life! As if he had been born all over again!
I'm not altogether sure why Jesus pointed to this Old Testament incident in his conversation with Nicodemus, but it also involves a clever play on words. The carefully chosen Greek word (hypsoo) used for "lifted up" denotes not only a literal lifting up in space but also exaltation in glory. In this Gospel Jesus is glorified by being crucified. He who descended has ascended upon high, but has ascended by way of the cross! (F.F. Bruce, The Gospel of John) Jesus uses the snake-on-a-stick story as an object lesson when trying to convince Nicodemus, and perhaps we can do the same without having to tie up all of the story's loose ends.
A Lesson in Sin and Salvation
As an object lesson we can learn several things from this story. Firstly, I think it is a lesson about sin and salvation. The cross, like the serpent on the pole, is not a nice symbol. The cross was a symbol of death, the instrument of Roman execution. The serpent on the pole is also not an attractive symbol, for it reminds us of the venom that can kill. I don't know why the medical profession chose the serpent on a pole as the symbol of their profession, except that it's somewhat appropriate, for going to the doctor or hospital is seldom a pleasurable experience. Returning to health always seems to involve some additional pain.
The ugliness of the cross is often not apparent to us because it has become an object of veneration. One year a church in Dallas, Texas erected an unusual cross on the lawn of their church during Lent. The cross was more than ten feet high and was made of weapons of crime and violence, most of which had been confiscated by the Dallas police. There were guns, pistols, knives, bayonets, bullets, bombs, and broken bottles. The cross rose out of the remains of an automobile crushed almost flat in an accident, its base surrounded by a twisted barbed wire barrier like that which surrounds a prison.
This unusual cross created a lot of controversy within the congregation and the city, and pictures of it were shown in newspapers and television newscasts across the country. It wasn't easy to look at this cross of violence, and many people hated the sight of it. There were petitions to have it removed. There were cries that the ugly cross was a sacrilege and a desecration. But as one pastor said, "The reaction was understandable; we do not like to be reminded of the suffering of God for our sin." (Robert C. Morgan, Lift High the Cross, 1995)
There is no denial of sin in the Christian view of the world. The Bible does not sweep sin under a rug. God sent Jesus into human existence to show us the path to glory, but he did this by experiencing our pain and death. Jesus exposed himself to the venom of human sin, pain and suffering so as to effect our salvation.
A Lesson in Perspective
As an object lesson the serpent-on-a-pole story also teaches us perspective. The Israelites hated snakes! There were few poisonous snakes in the region through which the Israelites wandered, but they concluded that snakes are snakes are snakes, and felt that if Noah had struck them from his passenger list we would be all the better for it!
There weren't many snakes in the area where I grew up, but my dad once caught one and showed it to me. I was fascinated by the beauty of the design on its skin and by its soundless slither, but at the same time repulsed by it. A good metaphor for sin, as the biblical writers well knew.
If I were in danger of being bitten by snakes, my inclination would be to look down at the ground, ever vigilant in order to avoid them. The Israelites, however, were instructed to look up. One's salvation does not come from myopic fascination with sin or fear of it, but from a heavenly perspective.
Sometimes we lose perspective. We complain about food, forgetting how wonderful it is to have freedom! At the time of the snake pit incident, the Israelites were very near the end of their forty years in the wilderness. They were on the verge of entering the Promised Land when it was decided that they should take a small detour and enter the Promised Land by another route. This change in plans, however, triggered a torrent of bitter complaints.
Perhaps Moses' bronze serpent on a pole was a warning to the Israelites to stop looking down at the ground, watching for snakes, and start looking up! Look up and believe that the God who delivered you out of Egypt will deliver you from everything else, including a nest of venomous vipers! Look up and live!
Sometimes we focus so much on the snakes around our ankles that we forget to look up to the healer on the cross. Once stung or bitten by a painful experience of life, it is tempting to retreat into a "once-bitten-twice-shy" mentality, but our Christian faith encourages us to "set (our) minds on things that are above...." (Colossians 3:2) It is from above that our help comes.
A Lesson in Transformation
As an object lesson, our Old Testament story is also a lesson in transformation. The transformation in the story is an arresting one. A symbol of death is transformed into a symbol of deliverance! A symbol of fear is transformed into a symbol of freedom from fear! A symbol of toxicity is transformed into a symbol of healing! A symbol of sin is transformed into a symbol of salvation!
John's allusion to Moses and the serpents may appear, on the one hand, to be but a literary device, but it's an effective one, for in both readings God transforms symbols of death and punishment into symbols of life and healing. Just as a snake, even a bronze one, is not all that great to look upon, so too the cross is an instrument of cruel execution--a symbol of condemnation! The Gospel maintains, however, that "God did not send Jesus to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Those who believe in him are not condemned...." (John 3:17-18)
A symbol of death became a symbol of forgiveness and love. The same transformation is described in our reading from Ephesians: "You were dead through the trespasses and sins in which you once lived, following the course of this world.... All of us ...were by nature children of wrath.... But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us..., made us alive together with Christ...." (Ephesians 2:1-4)
Several decades ago (1958), a young Korean student and a leader in student Christian affairs at the University of Pennsylvania left his flat and went to the corner to post a letter to his parents in Korea. Turning from the mailbox he stepped into the path of eleven tough young fellows who, without a word attacked him, beating him mercilessly with a blackjack and a lead pipe and their bare hands, until he was dead. The whole city of Philadelphia cried out for vengeance. The district attorney obtained legal authority to try the boys as adults so that those found guilty could be given the death penalty. Then a letter arrived from Korea, a letter signed by the parents and by twenty other relatives of the murdered boy, which read: "Our family has met together and we have decided to petition that the most generous treatment possible within the laws of your government be given to those who have committed this criminal action. ... In order to give evidence of our sincere hope contained in this petition, we have decided to save money to start a fund to be used for the religious, educational, vocational and social guidance of the boys when they are released.... We have dared to express our hope with a spirit received from the gospel of our Saviour Jesus Christ who died for our sins." (A. Leonard Griffith, Beneath the Cross of Jesus)
Jesus died on a cruel cross, but God transformed this symbol of death and condemnation into a powerful symbol of forgiveness and love. For this reason we sing, "Lift high the cross". Our Lord, "once lifted on the tree of pain" draws all the world to his "throne, that earth's despair may cease beneath the shadow of its healing peace." (Hymnal: A Worship Book, #321) AMEN
All quotations of Scripture, unless otherwise noted, are from the New Revised Standard Version.