[ Today's Readings ]
Make a saraph and mount it on a pole,
and whoever looks at it after being bitten will live.
The people are probably tired of looking at saraphs by now. Yet they must look once more. They must fully comprehend the depth of the problem in order to move beyond it. These saraphs are their own bitterness and lack of trust in God. This is hard to see. The consequences are hard to take. But only if the people see this can they reach the freedom toward which they journey.
Looking on him whom we have pierced, Jesus Christ, we see that sin is much more serious than we like to believe. But in seeing this, accepting it, and owning up to it, we come into line with how God thinks about it. When we believe what God believes about it his offer of deliverance begins to make sense. We can find the freedom toward which we journey.
When you lift up the Son of Man,
then you will realize that I AM,
and that I do nothing on my own,
but I say only what the Father taught me.
We see the obedience of Jesus and our own lack thereof by contrast. He only does what the Father tells him. He only tells the world what he hears from the Father. Looking upon this beautiful surrender to the Father is not meant to make us feel guilty so much as to show what we are meant for, and yes, what we have not yet even dared to attempt. Only in such surrender do we find fulfillment. And until now our surrender has been partial at best. But from the cross Jesus draws us to himself, into his own obedience, his own surrender, and his own offering. Let us allow ourselves to be drawn.
He has not left me alone,
because I always do what is pleasing to him."
Because he spoke this way, many came to believe in him.
No matter where we are in life, how destitute we feel, how much we feel like prisoners, like those doomed to die, the LORD will hear us if we cry out to him.
The LORD looked down from his holy height,
from heaven he beheld the earth,
To hear the groaning of the prisoners,
to release those doomed to die.
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