Advent 2023: December 13 - People

Wednesday, December 13th: People

Read Numbers 21.

Out of the regrettable things that the people of Israel have done, Numbers 21 is toward the top of the list.
 
The people have been wandering the wilderness for some time now as punishment for rebelling against God, saying that they would not go into the Promised Land because God would not be able to come through on his promises.

God, of course, has been providing and caring for their needs.  Every day manna comes down out of heaven for the people of Israel to collect.  It is sweet tasting and there is always more than enough.
 
But the people are sick of it and in Numbers 21 they call it worthless food, or dung.  And for such ungratefulness, God decides to send some snakes their way instead.  These venomous serpents cause untold death and grief for the people.

So they ask Moses to pray for them and to take away the snakes.  But what is curious is that God will not take away the snakes, but he will provide them with a way of salvation.  And what is brilliant is that this solution teaches faith.

Moses builds a bronze serpent and sets it up on a pole. Everyone who looks at that bronze serpent will live even if he has been bitten.  That is God’s solution for them.  (Which is why the medical field still today uses the serpent on a pole as its symbol).
 
This is perhaps a weird way to go about saving them, until you remember the work of Jesus Christ.  We are told in John 3 that Jesus refers to this event when considering his own work.  Jesus says that “just as the Moses lifted up the serpent, so too must the Son of Man be lifted up that all who look to him will have eternal life.”

We are to now look to Christ.  Sin is still biting us, but Jesus is our solution.  He is the one who makes us whole.  Not our works, not our doing, not our solutions.  Just keeping our eyes on Jesus.