Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ who grafted us into His royal family. Amen.

The text for today’s meditation is Numbers 21:8-9

⁸And the Lord said to Moses, "Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live." ⁹So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live.

This story reminds me of Indiana Jones in The Raiders of the Lost Ark. Indiana Jones is about to be dropped into the room where the Ark is only to realize that the floor seems to be moving. After dropping a torch into the room he realizes the room is full of snakes and Indiana Jones hates snakes. It turns out that he and Marion end up trapped in this room with the snakes and the torches they are using to keep the snakes back are about to go out. Indiana has a fear for snakes. I would say a well deserved fear knowing how lethal they can be. Of course in the movie the hero, Indiana, relies on his own resources, his whip and vast knowledge, to find a way out and escapes the snake pit. The Israelites don’t have quite the same resources as Indiana Jones to escape their snake pit. So who do they rely on?

The Israelites just ended a time of mourning after Aaron died and was buried on Mount. Hor. They were leaving the Mount and had to go around Edom because they were denied passage by the king. The path around Edom took them back to where they started near the Red Sea. The Israelites thought they were traveling in circles and became disgruntled with Moses and God again. They remembered only the good things about their captivity in Egypt, not the pain and suffering of the whips and bricks. The Egyptian whips were used to keep them in line and in slavery unlike Indiana Jones’ whip which he used to escape. They were tired of eating manna every day. Their memory was clouded as they called Egypt the land flowing with milk and honey. That was the farthest thing from the truth. Israel is being true to their repeated pattern while in the wilderness, complaint, judgment, repentance, intersession, and help from God. They are fully into the complaint phase of their pattern and God is true to the pattern as well.

God pronounces judgment on the Israelites in the form of fiery serpents. In that part of the country the heat is extremely intense and the fiery serpents are called asps. When the asps bite a man, he swells, turns red, and his whole body becomes so feverish that he is soon past help unless the bitten member is amputated at once. If the member is not amputated the fire or fever will penetrate and affect the whole body and death is inevitable. In his song in Deut. 32:33 Moses sings of "the incurable venom of asps." They are called "fiery serpents" because they inflame the body with their sting so that the affected member must be cut off at once, or death will result. These serpents were not actually fiery; but when they bit a man, his flesh grew so fiery red and feverish that he died of thirst. That is why they were called "fiery serpents." God’s punishment is sudden death by these fiery serpents for their disobedience and the Israelites realize the error of their ways and repent. They ask Moses to intercede for them, he does and God gives His help in the form of a bronze serpent on a pole that Moses was to make and erect. God tells Moses that whoever "looks at" the serpent will not die. The serpent did not have some magical power but instead it had God’s word and promise. Although, as a snake, it was an object of scorn and contempt, all the people had to do was believe the word of Moses by "looking at" the serpent. This was such a simple cure for such a severe wound. The term used for believing is "look at" and I’m sure many failed to accept the remedy and died in their unbelief. They might have thought: "Ha, what a ridiculous medicine for the bite of a serpent, Moses have you lost your

mind?" Only the believers understood Moses’ words and recovered through their faith and once again the Israelites are delivered from judgment, the wilderness pattern is complete, and they once again have faith in God.

In the Gospel Lesson, Jesus compares himself to the serpent that was lifted up in the wilderness. He continues to say that whoever believes in Him, or in the terms used in numbers "looks at" Him, will have eternal life. Jesus becomes our serpent of salvation symbolized for us by the bronze serpent Moses made. We need a savior because when Adam and Eve disobeyed God in the Garden of Eden we, too, have been bitten by the venomous serpent in Paradise. They murmured against God when He forbid them to eat of the one tree and when they disobeyed Him the devil stung Adam and injected his poison, for which there is no cure. The result was the death of Adam. By nature we are all still subject to death and have to die. There is no help and no remedy for this. Unlike Indiana Jones, no one has ever escaped sin and death. We are all affected by the serpent’s fatal venom which was transmitted to us by Adam and there is no antidote and death is inevitable.

Just as God lifted up a bronze serpent so that all who looked at it would recover; God allowed His son to descend from heaven and be nailed to the cross, where he too, hangs like a serpent or a worm, the object of scorn and contempt, just as Christ laments in Psalm 22 verse 6; "But I am a worm and not a man, scorned by mankind and despised by the people." But whoever believes in this crucified Christ will not be lost and perish but will have everlasting life, just as those who looked at the bronze serpent in the wilderness did not die but were saved, bitten but not lost. The Israelites were asked to look at the serpent physically, but you must look at Christ spiritually and in faith. The Israelites were cured of bodily poisoning; but you through Christ will be delivered from eternal poison. The Israelites recovered from a physical ailment, but Christ bestows eternal life on those who believe in Him. Christ compared himself to a serpent but in reality, He is not a serpent; He is the Lamb of God which bears your sin and the sins of the entire world and He saves you from eternal death. Only for you He became a serpent.

It’s not easy to believe that Christ would become a serpent, that He was crucified, died, and damned for you and me, no; it’s not easy in fact it requires the power of God. That is why St. Paul talks about it to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 1:23, "but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles." He says a stumbling block to the Jews and folly to the gentiles yet it penetrates our heart. Romans 1:16 says, "For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek." The power of God for everyone who believes.

The Christian life resembles ancient Israel’s time in the wilderness. By Christ’s all-sufficient work, you have been redeemed from bondage and you belong to God. You have been redeemed and freed from bondage through baptism. But the life of a Christian can be a difficult journey. We too, are in a constant pattern of becoming disgruntled and complain. We may be thinking, "I wasn’t expecting to have to make hard choices, suffer, and be persecuted." Many turn back to the ways of the world, they fail to believe and "look at" Christ for the cure. Jesus never said the life of discipleship would be easy. There are hard times, when they come look in faith to the Son of Man lifted high on the cross. Apart from Him there is only death but with Him there is eternal life. Don’t seek to use your own resources to escape the snake pit like Indiana Jones. Don’t show a lack of faith like some of the Israelites by refusing to look up at the cross for the cure needed from your sin. Look at Christ for the cure. We are bitten but we are not lost when we look at Christ our savior and redeemer who gives you eternal life.

Amen.