The Bronze Serpant

Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross - Numbers 21:4b-9

With their patience worn out by the journey,

the people complained against God and Moses,

"Why have you brought us up from Egypt to die in this desert,

where there is no food or water?

We are disgusted with this wretched food!"

In punishment the LORD sent among the people saraph serpents,

which bit the people so that many of them died.

Then the people came to Moses and said,

"We have sinned in complaining against the LORD and you.

Pray the LORD to take the serpents from us."

So Moses prayed for the people, and the LORD said to Moses,

"Make a saraph and mount it on a pole,

and if any who have been bitten look at it, they will live."

Moses accordingly made a bronze serpent and mounted it on a pole,

and whenever anyone who had been bitten by a serpent

looked at the bronze serpent, he lived.

After the Exodus, Israel wandered in the Sinai desert for forty years. This was not God’s original plan. Rather it was the result of repeated rebellion and refusal to follow God’s plan. The whole thing came to a head at Kadesh when all of Israel except for Joshua and Caleb decided they would rather go back to Egypt than enter Canaan, forfeiting their chance to enter the Promised Land. They would have to roam the desert for forty years, a highly symbolic number but also a length of time necessary for an entire generation to pass away.

During these forty years, the books of Exodus and Numbers record at least ten different times that Israel complained, often describing it as murmuring, against the Lord. Our reading today represents the tenth such complaint, which just might be the most egregious of the murmuring. Ever since the earliest days of the Exodus, even before they arrived at Mt. Sinai, the Lord had been feeding Israel with manna, miraculous bread from heaven. Now nearly forty years later, even the second generation of Israelites begin to complain about “this wretched food.” In punishment, the people were plagued by fiery serpents and eventually cried out to God for help. 

Notice how the Lord responded. He didn’t take away the serpents or their bite. Instead, he allowed the consequence of rebellion to stand, but he also provided a remedy. After a person was bitten, he could look upon a bronze serpent on a pole, still the icon of the medical profession today, and he would live. 

God is a good Father, and he will allow us to experience the consequences of our sin and rebellion so that we can learn from our mistakes. But he is also a forgiving Father who would rather die than risk eternity without us. And so centuries later, healing would come not from a serpent lifted on a pole but from a Savior lifted on a cross. Jesus took the consequences of our sinful rebellion upon himself so that we could experience forgiveness. May we never murmur over so great a gift.