Look the Serpent in the Eye

Numbers 21:4-9

After forty years in the desert, the people of God are tired, downtrodden, and impatient. They have just recently learned that the older generation will not live to see the promised land- all those who were adults when Moses led them out of Egypt, including Moses himself, will die before crossing the Jordan river into the land of promise. The elders, those who endured a lifetime of bondage, will not live to see their grandchildren fed by a land flowing with milk and honey. God’s promise will be kept, but to their descendants. Not only are the people burdened by the weight of this news, but they have barely survived battle after battle and skirmish after skirmish with other communities as they wander through the desert. Now, they are approaching the end of their wandering, only to be forced to go the long way round. To avoid further conflict with other tribes, they must take the scenic route, continuing to rely on the daily provision of manna from God. They’re sick of the same food day after day, and they are so tired of itineracy that they’ve begun to romanticize their life in Egypt, remembering the variety of foods in the rich nation and conveniently forgetting the oppression and loss they endured there. The people of God are longing for the good old days, the security and predictability of a life under a dictator. They would rather go back to what is familiar, even if it means sacrificing a better and freer future for their children.

And then come the snakes. The text tells us that God sent them, but we also know from other ancient sources that this region through which they are traveling was notorious for its venomous snakes. The place must have been crawling with them, because snakes show up everywhere in ancient literature and art from the area. The frustrated Israelite pilgrims now face a new wave of tragedies- members of their community are bitten by snakes, and people begin to die from the poisoned bites. Following a particularly human impulse, the people turn to a person of prayer for help in this time of crisis. Moses, who they were just complaining to, and God, who they were just railing against, are now their only hope. They recognize and confess their ingratitude and beg for the healing that only the God of creation can provide.

So Moses prays for the people. He does not say “I told you so,” he does not leave them to suffer or call the venom a consequence of their actions. Moses hears their confession and goes to God on their behalf. And the Lord listens. God instructs Moses to make a serpent and lift it up on a pole, making it visible for all who are suffering from the snake bites. Everyone who is bitten will look at the snake, and they will live. And they do. For once, everyone follows instructions to the letter, and lives are saved.

It has always struck me as strange that the God who is so adamantly against idols and graven images would ask Moses to create one. A magic healing snake statue seems a little out of character, even for the Book of Numbers, which contains a story of a talking donkey. But Jesus teaches Nicodemus about this short and strange little story, so it’s worth taking a closer look.

God just tells Moses to make a serpent, not how to make it, so Moses takes a little artistic license. I learned this week that the word for serpent and the word for bronze in Hebrew sound very similar, so when Moses chooses the material for the serpent he is being a little funny, constructing a pun, a biblical Dad joke of sorts. I don’t have any deep theological interpretations to offer on this fun fact, except to say that the Bible is funny, as well as being scary and troubling and beautiful and comforting and fascinating and repetitive. Humans always manage to find a little humor, even in the face of hard things, and I think that tells us something about the God who made us.

The serpent statue itself might be familiar to us now, although there are several versions out there. The asklepios, a rod with a snake wrapped around it, is one of the most common symbols for healthcare in the world, deriving from the staff of a Greek god of healing and medicine. The nehushtan, the symbol that Moses creates, is often depicted in religious art as a T shape, bearing a striking resemblance to a cross. Although it may seem a bit superstitious and magical, the symbol itself does not provide the healing. God could have pointed Moses in the direction of a cure in the form of a medicinal plant or an antidote- but then the Israelites might have interpreted the healing as something of Moses’s own doing instead of a saving act of God. Because it is God’s voice and command that directs Moses to construct the nehushtan, it is God’s mercy that provides the healing relief.

It seems a bit counterintuitive that a symbol of the thing that is killing them would be offered to the sick to provide healing. After all, the serpent is not only the literal culprit behind their current suffering but is also the mythical symbol of humanity’s temptation and fall. The Israelites are not big fans of snakes, and yet they must gaze upon that which has inflicted their pain. To be healed, they must first look directly at the thing that is killing them.

This is not the only time that God has done this. The same stranger that wrestled and disabled Jacob blessed him and gave him the name that would outlive him—Israel. The same waters that parted for the Israelites prevented the Egyptian armies from recapturing them and hauling them back to slavery. The same cross that an Empire used to kill and intimidate those who might inspire revolution became the way by which death and Empire are defeated forever. In the words of Jesus, “Just 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.” The cross of death becomes the doorway to everlasting life if we can only find it in ourselves to look the serpent in the eye.

This is something we hate doing. We can see it in the way we tell stories, the way we write and teach history, the way we decide what is appropriate to discuss in polite company. We hate to look at what is killing us, so we look everywhere else. Racism isn’t the problem- it’s the fact that you’re making everything about race. Sexism isn’t the problem- it’s the fact that the women won’t shut up and be satisfied with how far they’ve come. Homophobia isn’t the problem- it’s the fact that people are kissing their partners in public and making us uncomfortable. Our violent culture isn’t the problem- it’s the video games and the separation of church and state and the fact that children aren’t taught to pray at school anymore. We would rather look everywhere but at the snake that bit us, everywhere but at the sin that is killing us.

God knows this about us. God loves us too much to ignore this part of us. For God so loves this world, that God will allow humanity to replace the serpent with God’s own body. God will go there for us, until we can no longer look away.

God is always transforming that which might lead to our destruction. It is what God does, who God is for us. Not a divine punisher or a miracle cure, but a God of transformation. This is what Lent is for– this long and dreary slog through the more depressing parts of our reality. We need forty days to work ourselves up to looking the snake in the face. We need this much time to prepare ourselves just to face the cross. We need this time to be reminded, year after year, that we will only find healing in one place. Look at the cross, and live.