Alive.

This one phrase says it all, “And the people became impatient on the way.” Numbers 21:4 begins the narrative of the people as they wandered through the desert in the Middle East. The next few verses of the chapter describe what happened as a result of their impatience:

And the people spoke against God and against Moses, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this worthless food.” Then the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died. And the people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against you. Pray to the Lord, that he take away the serpents from us.” So Moses prayed for the people.  And 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.”  So 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.

The people of Israel, much like myself, had become impatient along the way and began telling God just how it should be.  They were breaking a number of the commandments He had given them as protection.  They were selfish.  They were honoring themselves above God.  They were not thankful.  They were sinners.  And they saw it.  Verse 7 says that they admitted their sins to Moses and desired to be free from them. 

God, in mercy, devised a way for them to live!  He had Moses make a fiery serpent (seems pretty easy, right?  Let me just go whip up a fiery serpent!) and raise it up on a pole.  Whoever looked on the serpent would live.

Fast Forward.

John 3:16… the most known verse of the Bible starts: “For God so loved the world,” I’d be willing to bet the “so” here isn’t like “so much” (though He does love us so much). It’s more like… “In this way, God loved the world” or “This is how God loved the world”… and it’s connected to verses 14 and 15 previously, which say, “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.”

Jesus is our serpent.  We are sinners.  Every single one of us.  But God loved us.  He made a way for us to live.  John 3:14 says that Jesus was lifted up (hung on a tree-like cross) that whoever “looks on him” (read: believes in him) will not die, but live.

This is the best, most freeing news in the world!  Let the glory of Christ on that tree dying your death sink into your heart today. When we admit that we are sinners and ask Jesus to save us, believing in Him, He will deliver us from our sin and the death it brings.

And you, who were dead in your trespasses …, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.  Colossians 2:13-14 ESV

Happy Easter everyone!