In Bible terms, serpents are only
problems, but problems that
can be handled in Christ
As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up.
John 3:14
Two folk expressions are appropriate right now:
One is, "Give it to God." Another is the old Jewish expression, "You're dead to me."
To say or even think, "You're dead to me" is a terrible way to feel. That's a feeling that doesn't have Jesus. But it's appropriate for this lesson, because it helps bring together some very strange puzzles that Jesus gave us.
"As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up," Jesus told a man named Nicodemus one night.
If you're a Christian and are the kind of person who has reached out in prayer about every strong question you have had about the Bible, you may have wondered, or may be wondering right now, Why has Jesus compared himself to a serpent?
It's a mystery, the most odd puzzle I think the Holy Spirit has ever given.
But it helps to know that, in God's terms, serpents represent problems.
Sin is a problem for God. And a tradition of sin ("iniquity") that goes from generation to generation more and more as time goes on, becomes so much a problem that hearts grow cold, the love of Jesus has warned.
Yet so many people think sin is a remedy. And maybe a few, in strange theological circles, have made it up in their hearts that the serpent himself that Moses lifted up was a remedy - as in a reflection of Jesus on the cross. ... But how wrong is all of that!
In Moses' time, the Israelites were familiar with prophets, but they didn't have the Messiah, the Savior from God, firm in heart. So God spoke to the people in some very rudimentary ways.
There came a time when the people were getting bites from snakes that felt like fire, and those people were dying, possibly at an alarming rate (which begs the question of why the people didn't quickly walk away from the snake-bitten place where they were traveling or where they may have been living).
Moses, like a shrewd father, went and most likely killed a large snake that was the color of bronze. He posted a pole up high somewhere and put the dead snake on the pole.
The sight of that dead thing on a pole had to have drawn crowds away from sulking over repeated snake bites. It put eyes on a solution. ... Just trust God, move away from the problems for at least a few minutes, look here, look up, remember what God did in Egypt, pray and slay whatever problems are in the way, and stop being bitten.
That was a solution that didn't quite include Jesus.
That was a the-problem-is-dead solution. That was a "The problem is already dead to me" response. Instead of reflecting or foreshadowing the coming Savior, Moses raised up a solution by taking things into his own God-given hands.
The trouble with that solution is that, oftentimes, our problems, although snakelike, are very much about differences or fighting among very human people. So, we need Jesus.
Jesus isn't the problem. He is the solution who is the remedy. He is the one from Heaven whose self sacrifice says, "Go on now, to a new freedom. Sin no more."
Instead of reflecting what Moses did, Jesus was lifted up to do the opposite, to draw people not to ending problems with their hands, but to accepting Him as the only Heaven-sent sacrifice for this world's problems.
The only similarity between Jesus and the serpent was that both were lifted up in order to draw people away from perishing.
But in Him, there is a whole lot of waiting problems out ("longsuffering"). In Him, there is a lot of trial or testing. In Him, there is slowness to anger and care in judgment. In Him, each one is held to an account. In Him, there is deliverance, even if we're unable to move and are just being still. In Him, there is wisdom and there are hands to help heal. In Him, solutions, real remedies, take time, despite how we expect Him to, in the end, come swiftly.
Amen.
