Christianity is all about new life. In three short weeks we’ll celebrate the greatest and biggest event in the life of the Church: the resurrection of Jesus. Because of Easter, believers can make a new beginning in faith because of the hope and promise of new life after death. In addition, the resurrection of Jesus also gives us the hope and confidence that we can have new life in Christ here and now in our day-to-day lives, a daily deepening of our faith, if you will. All of this is a gift that comes by faith, a gift that trusts the wisdom of faith that through the resurrection of Jesus we can rise above the immorality of this world and live new and better lives than we are living.
But we must realize that nothing can be resurrected to new life unless it first dies. In God’s wisdom, to gain any new life involves going through a death. For instance, when a child is born into this life, that child must die to the life it lived in the womb. It must leave behind life as a fetus in order to come to life as a baby. That example helps us understand the Biblical teaching that when a person is born again or born anew into a spiritual life with Jesus, that person must die to the old life that was lived in the world. Like a fetus to a baby, people must leave behind the worldly person in order to come to life as a spiritual person.
The same truths apply to the churches. Churches can celebrate resurrection to new life in Christ as surely as can individual people. Churches may need to leave behind an old way of life in order to be born anew into the life God called and created that congregation to be. We usually refer to such occurrences as reformations or renewals rather than resurrections. Nonetheless, churches may be called to leave behind old ways in order to accept the gift of faith offered in Jesus the Christ.
For any living thing to move to a new life or to grow into a renewed life, some things must die. Seeds die so that new plants can grow. Skin cells die and are replaced by new cells all the time. In that case, we must get rid of the old so that the new remains healthy. When we fail to wash off the old cells every day, pretty soon they will cause us to stink. When we fail to wash off the ways of our old, worldly lives, they will cause us to stink spiritually to God, to others, and ultimately to ourselves, too.
Such cleansing, such putting to death, is necessary for us to grow and to live spiritually healthy lives. Sometimes the putting to death can be painful. Scrubbing dirt off the skin can hurt. Spiritually, enduring withdrawal from a drug or alcohol addiction, for example, can be painful both physically and emotionally. But the rewards of a cleansed and renewed life, physically and spiritually, far outweigh the temporary pain. If you’re going through a personal time of cleansing or putting to death of something in your life, cling to this verse from the Bible: “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us.” Romans 8:18 New Revised Standard Version
But what about when the cleansing or the putting to death seems so difficult or so prolonged that we might consider it to be cruel and unusual punishment? That’s when this strange and perplexing story from the often-overlooked book of Numbers can be helpful.
Then the people of Israel set out from Mount Hor, taking the road to the Red Sea to go around the land of Edom. But the people grew impatient with the long journey, and they began to speak against God and Moses. “Why have you brought us out of Egypt to die here in the wilderness?” they complained. “There is nothing to eat here and nothing to drink. And we hate this horrible manna!”
So the Lord sent poisonous snakes among the people, and many were bitten and died. Then the people came to Moses and cried out, “We have sinned by speaking against the Lord and against you. Pray that the Lord will take away the snakes.” So Moses prayed for the people.
Then the Lord told him, “Make a replica of a poisonous snake and attach it to a pole. All who are bitten will live if they simply look at it!” So Moses made a snake out of bronze and attached it to a pole. Then anyone who was bitten by a snake could look at the bronze snake and be healed! Numbers 21:4-9 New Living Translation
Strange story, isn’t it? God’s people griped and complained about what God was doing. “We hate this horrible manna!” Talk about biting the hand that feeds you! So, God sent poisonous snakes to afflict the people. When the people confessed their sinfulness and cried out for deliverance from the snakes, God didn’t take away the snakes like they asked. Instead, God’s method to bring healing was for the people to look at an image of the poisonous snakes that were causing their pain! Strange.
Well, one of the lessons from this story is that God will rescue us from problems of our own doing. Sometimes we need to be cleansed because we got ourselves dirty through our own sinful behaviors and attitudes. This episode was the final one of a series of six doubts and complaints the people voiced against God when they encountered obstacles along the way to the Promised Land. Those words and attitudes of the Israelites brought divine judgment upon themselves in the form of poisonous snakes. That’s a lesson in and of itself, - be careful what we complain about. But a deeper message is that in the midst of the judgment they brought on themselves, God provided a means of salvation. God didn’t take away the judgment – the snakes remained. Rather, God provided a way for them to escape from the judgment’s consequences.
As such, this story foreshadows the means of salvation from the judgment of eternal death that God would provide through Jesus centuries later. The judgment of eternal death as the consequence of sin is still in place. However, God has provided a means of escape from that judgment through the death and resurrection of Jesus, which we will celebrate on Easter Sunday. Our faith in Jesus allows us to receive that gift of God.
There is a second important lesson in this story though: Unwavering trust in God will see us through when the putting to death of what needs cleansed from our lives seems overly difficult or prolonged. The snakes were a painful and terrifying method of cleansing sin from the lives of the Israelites. But, maintaining faith in God’s plan of salvation would enable anyone and everyone to escape the fatal consequences.
Because the people repeatedly spoke out against God and Moses, God considered wiping them out, on more than one occasion. Instead, God sent poisonous serpents to afflict the people. Why? To get their attention. God was telling them, rather dramatically, Either you acknowledge and repent of your wicked and foolish ways, or you will perish. Hear this carefully: God’s ultimate purpose in sending the snakes was not to kill the people – God could have just done that outright with a thought.
Instead, God’s ultimate goal was redemption of the people, a cleansing and putting to death that which was souring the people’s relationship with God. God wanted the people to lead new lives of faithful commitment and obedience, not lives of selfish whining and complaining. That makes me wonder - could God be permitting the serpents and poisons in our lives right now to exist so that we might come to repentance and lead the new lives that God wants us to lead? Could that have been was has happened in our church family recently? Whether individually or as a church family, we better sit up and pay attention to what God has to say.
Anyway, it took faith to trust and follow the cure that God prescribed. Bit by a snake? Just look at a bronze snake on a pole to be healed. Amazing. Today we have trouble following instructions to take medicine, adjust diet and exercise, or eliminate unhealthy actions to cure us of our ills. Imagine the faith it took to obey that instruction! But the result of such faith was a gift of healing. And you know what? Faith bred faith - the more people who acted faithfully and obediently and were healed, the more who became willing to step out in faith and find the same healing.
What a wonderful example for us in the Church today. The more each of us in the church act and lead lives of faithful obedience, the more others will begin to do the same, too. For example, one of the yearnings in the Church today is for more commitment from church members. The example of this story tells us that if a few church members begin living more committed lives, others will follow their example as they see the changes that take place in their lives and in the life of the church. If a few people begin trusting God and living their lives and making decisions based upon what God would have them do, more and more folks will begin to trust God and live their lives and make decisions based upon what God would have them do, too.
Did you know that this story of the snakes from Numbers was referenced by Jesus? Listen for how these words from John, chapter 3, link the serpent story of Numbers to the cross.
“And as Moses lifted up the bronze snake on a pole in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him will have eternal life. For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him.
“There is no judgment against anyone who believes in him. But anyone who does not believe in him has already been judged for not believing in God’s one and only Son. And the judgment is based on this fact: God’s light came into the world, but people loved the darkness more than the light, for their actions were evil. All who do evil hate the light and refuse to go near it for fear their sins will be exposed. But those who do what is right come to the light so others can see that they are doing what God wants.” John 3:14-21 New Living Translation
Faith in a bronze snake brought the gift of physical life to those who were dying because of a snake’s venom. Faith in Jesus gives the gift of eternal life to those who are dying because of the venom of sin. Jesus offers us the gift of new life from the condemning bite of sin through his death on the cross. Although the Bible tells us that God is the only one who can truly make condemnation, the Bible also tells us that God sent his Son into the world not to condemn the world, but that we might have new life through Him.
It is so hard for us to let the job of condemnation up to God. Many people are led to the brink of suicide because they relentlessly condemn themselves and refuse to forgive themselves or they consider themselves to be unworthy of anyone’s love, but especially of God’s love. Others ruin relationships or their own souls because they refuse to forgive other people and instead hold on to hurt and pain and condemnation. Like a snake bite, a spirit of bitterness poisons and eventually consumes them.
Let the work of condemnation to God. We have enough trouble when we realize the enormity of the task of trying to clean up the sin from our lives or of putting to death what is wicked in our lives. The job is so big that we despair of ever being successful. This is especially true when we think that we have to fix ourselves spiritually all on our own. But we can’t fix it ourselves, nor do we have to try to.
Such thinking goes contrary to one of the hallmarks of our American culture and heritage: ingenuity and inventiveness born out of independence. “Necessity is the mother of invention” is a popular truism. However, some people’s ingenuity and inventiveness are just plain scary, especially when it comes to trying to fix things by ourselves.
(Several photographs of clever, but dangerous or silly solutions people used to fix a problem they had were shown.) Folks, the results of our efforts to fix the sin problem in our lives by ourselves will be just as fruitless and ridiculous, like trying to replace bricks with Lego’s. God freely gave the Israelites a means of escape and of healing through the bronze serpent image raised on a pole. Just so God has given us the free gift of salvation through the broken body of his Son, Jesus, who was raised on the pole we call the cross. The Israelites needed to demonstrate faith that believed that the bronze serpent would bring them salvation from the death caused by a snake bite. Likewise all we need to do receive salvation from the eternal death caused by our sin is to place our faith in what God did on the cross. Jesus paid the price so we don’t have to.
The free gifts of faith and salvation are offered not because we deserve it, but because God wants to give it. Like Israelites bitten by poisonous snakes facing the bronze image of a serpent on a pole, we can choose to accept the gift that was lifted for us on a cross through faith and live - or we can choose to put our faith in a solution of our choosing, thereby refusing God’s gift, and die.
Rev. Dr. Philip Bence, free-lance writer and teacher for Fuller Seminary Northwest and Seattle Pacific University, wrote: “Why do people choose evil when an infinitely better good is available? Many factors can motivate people in this direction. Perhaps, going their own way, rather than following God’s wisdom, looks better in the short run. Or, these people pridefully refuse to admit their need, their wrongdoing. They hope to hide in the darkness, so that no one will see them as they truly are. Perhaps they feel that not even a God of love can accept them.”
God has made the choice to offer us redemption, salvation, new life here and now as well as for all eternity by sending his Son to die on a cross. Will you accept that gift through your response of faith?