Lifted Up: A Meditation on Numbers 21

There are more than a few enigmatic passages in the Old Testament, and this short story of the serpents is one of them.  The people of God grew weary of their manna from heaven, were tired, thirsty, and ill-tempered.  In their frustration with their circumstances of wandering in the desert, they accused God and his servant Moses of unfaithfulness, and despised the gifts God gave them.  They spoke evil of their food and providence, and even of the liberation God gave them from their Egyptian oppressors.

The spiritual condition of a people that will curse God and His gifts is dire, indeed.  God knows what we often forget, which is that we are dead in our trespasses and sins, unable to save ourselves from death, hell, and the power of the devil.  In our own power, and by our own corruption, we are slaves to our demonic oppressors, and to the wickedness which infects us to our core.  Apart from the grace and gifts of God, we are lost and without hope, destined for an eternity of torment in the lake of fire.  And so, to guide the people back to Himself as their only source of salvation and eternal life, God sent upon the people deadly serpents.

These serpents went throughout the population and killed many.  We should not withdraw ourselves from the gravity and grit of the text—God Himself sent a plague of poisonous snakes that killed many of His people.  Whether it was for judgment against their unbelief and cursing of His grace, or as a sign to others that they might not speak the same evil against their saving God, we must remember that our God is Holy, and reserves all judgment unto His own authority.  He is the Judge of all Creation, the King of the Universe.  It is tempting in our soft minded age to forget that all authority in heaven and earth are His, and that all evil is an affront to His holiness.

Under the plague of serpents, the people cried out in faith and repentance to Moses, begging him to pray to God for their deliverance.  In this the Law of the serpents accomplished its first task, presenting the people with a clear knowledge of their sin leading to death, and driving them back to God as their savior from sin and death.  To these repentant people, God spoke through Moses once again a word of Gospel, and established a means by which the people might be saved.  God had the people erect an image of that same fiery, deadly, poisonous serpent, so that anyone who looked upon it might be cured of their deadly wound.  In this, a Means of Grace was lifted up in the midst of the people, that the people who were dying in their trespasses and sins might live by God’s grace through faith in Him.

Of course, while the judgment and deliverance of the people of Israel accomplished great spiritual recovery for them some 3500 years ago, we know that this writing’s primary purpose is to point the people of God in every age and place to Jesus Christ.  God is not primarily teaching us about snakes, images on poles, or even that He will always bring about plagues on people who despise Him.  Rather, even as He brings about His Law and Gospel upon His people Israel, He points His people of all times and places to His Son who fulfills the Law and gives the Gospel in His own divine Person.  We, like the snake-bit people of Israel, are dead and dying in our trespasses and sins—not only moving through a physical death, but a spiritual death whose end is hell forever.  Amidst this great throng of suffering and dying sinners, God lifts up His Son upon the Cross, so that all who would believe in Him might not perish, but have everlasting life.  For God did not send His Son to that Cross, into our suffering and death, to condemn us, but rather that by Him we might have salvation from our suffering and death.  Our problem is that we are justly condemned already, suffering rightly under the condemnation of the Law, and in desperate need of a Savior.  Jesus takes that Law upon Himself, suffers and dies in our place, that we might rise unto eternal life in Him.  In the very Person of Jesus, hanging dead upon that Cross, lifted up for all the world to see, is the perfect sermon writ without words:  the Word Made Flesh, who is to us both Law and Gospel, calling everyone to Faith and Repentance through His Vicarious Atonement. 

As our Lenten journey through the deserts of sacrifice and self denial continues, we are reminded by the witness of God through His ancient people, not to grow weary of our God and His gifts.  We are called to acknowledge the curse of the Law justly written in our own sinful flesh, leading us ever closer to the day of our own physical death.  We are called also to behold the Means of God’s Grace for dead and dying sinners such as ourselves, which is Jesus our Lord and Savior lifted high upon His Cross.  Our Lord Jesus Christ is the only satisfaction for the curse written into our sinful flesh, and our only Gospel hope for eternal life.  Here, at the foot of His Cross, we receive from the Lord of Life the fruits of His suffering and death, given to us freely in His Word and Sacraments, and received freely by faith in Him alone.  Here, there is no room for the boasting of human merit, but only praise and honor for our Savior alone.  Here, we find ourselves in blessed communion with God our Savior, and the whole host of heaven, saved by His grace.  Here we find courage and strength for the days of our pilgrimage in this world, as our sojourn presses ever closer to that day when our faith is made sight.  Easter and the Promised Land lay before us.  Take heart, dear Christian. Amen.