With their patience worn out by the journey,
the people complained against God and Moses,
"Why have you brought us up from Egypt to die in this desert,
where there is no food or water?
We are disgusted with this wretched food!"
The people didn't realize how toxic their culture of complaining actual was until the Lord allowed them to experience its consequences. Even once they began to experience them they didn't fully get it. They wanted to be free of those consequences without ever truly facing up to their individual complicity. Ultimately, they would have settled for a situation where they continued unleashing the saraph serpents by their actions as long as someone was there to remove them before they could do too much harm. Or at least, this is what seems to be indicated when we consider what was necessary for a cure.
So Moses prayed for the people, and the LORD said to Moses,
"Make a saraph and mount it on a pole,
and if any who have been bitten look at it, they will live."
Somehow, the consequences of their sin had been transformed to become their salvation. But it was given without cognitive dissonance and discomfort for those who received its benefits. It was through beholding the ugliness of what they had done that they were able to become free of it. Once they came to terms with the fact that it was killing them they were finally in a position to be free of it.
And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert,
so must the Son of Man be lifted up,
so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.
Like the bronze serpent, the cross of Jesus exposed the ugliness of sin. Sin harmed not only the guilty, but also the innocent. It harmed not only those who were complicit, nor even those who were indifferent, but even those who came to offer help. The ugliness of sin was never so apparent as when the sinless one who came to save was made to suffer. It would go so far is to slaughter the spotless lamb of God, simply to avoid the feelings of guilt that true innocence can engender.
For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son,
so that everyone who believes in him might not perish
but might have eternal life.
There was more revealed in the cross of Christ than in the bronze serpent. The serpent was lifted up to repulse the people from their sinful ways. But when Jesus was lifted up he drew all people to himself (see John 12:32). It wasn't just the ugliness, else we would never have come to love the cross as we do. It was the revelation of the love that was unwavering in spite of our ugliness that drew us to love the cross. It became a constant reminder, yes, of the fact we killed God. But it was also at the same time a reminder that he came for our sake in spite of knowing this. It was precisely through it that he revealed the unstoppable force of his love. There was nothing we could do to one another that his love was not great enough to forgive and to heal. There was nothing we could do even to him that he would not forgive, provided we came to him humbled and contrite.
And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and pleas for mercy, so that, when they look on me, on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a firstborn (see Zechariah 12:10).
The cross is also always an implicit celebration of the resurrection since without that it could not truly be a sign of victory or triumph. Without the resurrection the cross would have been like a bronze serpent that could not cure the venom of their sin. Since the wages of sin is death (see Romans 6:23), only the new life of the resurrection could completely conquer it. It is for this reason that the cross is more than a sad reminder of our human failings. It is a reason for constant, unshakable and unwavering hope in God, that his love for us will never fail, and that what he did for Jesus he desires to do also for us, who are united with him, through baptism, in a death like his (see Romans 6:5).
No comments:
Post a Comment