Promises of God – “A Covenant of Healing”
Numbers 21:4-9; John 3:14-21
March 10, 2024
John 3:14-21
And 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. ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. ‘Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.’
There is a sermon related to the book of Numbers that I will save for another day.
In this same chapter of Numbers 21, verses 1-3 acknowledge the problematic nature
of these ancient texts. Of the various competing narratives of the Old Testament,
at least one of the narratives are overly biased and insular.
The authors of some of these ancient texts speak from the vantage point
of the Israelites, and are clearly biased against all the other tribes of peoples,
especially the Philistines of Gaza.
At least a goodly portion of the Hebrews understood that it was God’s will
for them to obliterate not only the armies of their enemies,
but also the cities of their enemies, including, the women, children, and the animals.
It is easier to understand the horrors of today’s news in Gaza when we read
these Old Testament texts and realize that many still live in an Old Testament world.
I thank God that we received the New Testament, that we believe that the Messiah
has been born to save us from our sin.
I am grateful that we no longer have to live in an “eye for an eye”
and “a tooth for a tooth” world.
And I acknowledge that for some, the understanding of God’s preferential bias
towards the Hebrews has not changed all that much.
For some, it is not even one life to be killed for one life,
but 10 or 20 or 30 lives of Palestinians to be killed for one Israeli life lost.
Yes, the horrors of Gaza today have roots in at least some of the narratives
of Old Testament theology.
Even so, as Christians in the United States, we cannot exactly claim moral high ground.
We have supplied the bombs that rain down on innocent civilians.
As Jesus once warned his followers in the Sermon on the Mount:
‘Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. For with the judgment you make
you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get.
Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log
in your own eye? Or how can you say to your neighbor,
“Let me take the speck out of your eye”, while the log is in your own eye?
You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly
to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye.” (Matthew 7:1-5)
But, all this is a sermon for another day.
Today we focus not upon the apparent genocide of Numbers 21:1-3,
but upon the covenant of healing in Numbers 21:4-9.
As we read this text, It does seems a bit obtuse to think that the utter destruction
of the cities and peoples of the Philistines in Gaza would have no moral consequences,
but that the consequences come from the people’s complaints about manna.
Hear the Word of God from Numbers 21.
From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea,
to go around the land of Edom; but the people became impatient on the way.
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 detest this miserable food.’
Then the Lord sent poisonous serpents among the people, and they bit the people,
so that many Israelites died. The people came to Moses and said,
‘We have sinned by speaking against the Lord and against you;
pray to the Lord to take away the serpents from us.’ So Moses prayed for the people. And the Lord said to Moses, ‘Make a poisonous serpent, and set it on a pole;
and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live.’
So Moses made a serpent of bronze, and put it upon a pole; and whenever a serpent
bit someone, that person would look at the serpent of bronze and live.
The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
The serpent on a pole has long been a symbol of help and hope and healing.
For generations, humankind has gazed upon the serpent hanging on the pole.
Most of you are probably familiar with this ancient image.
Especially for those in the medical profession, the serpent on the pole
has long been the symbol for help and hope and healing.
This image has graced doctor’s offices and medical school diplomas
and lapel pins for as long as anyone can remember.
Even today, when the American Medical Association has updated their image and logo,
still the serpent on a pole is meant to be a sign of help and hope and healing.
Why did God send the serpents among the people in the first place?
The people sinned, no doubt, but why such harsh judgment?
According to the author of Numbers, the people complained against God and Moses.
The “Go Back to Egypt” committee had reconvened.
I have heard it said that every church has a “Go Back to Egypt” committee,
a group that always wants to complain about the present
and try to go back to a past that is now gone and over.
I am grateful that, if this church has such a committee, it is for the most part dormant.
The people complained against God and Moses.
They were wandering in the wilderness, unsettled, uncertain of their future.
They were hungry; they were thirsty. And they were sick and tired of “manna”.
Though “manna” was a gift from God, a food to sustain them in the wilderness,
still, it wasn’t very appetizing. And it would stench and turn to old within a day.
Manna supposedly looked like small white coriander seeds;
it supposedly had a sweetish taste, like honey.
Some have conjectured that manna was made from a sweet beetle cocoon
that grows on green leaves in desert plants. (biblestudytools.com)
When the Hebrews first saw it and tasted it, they asked “What is it?”
The word “manna” actually means “what is it?”
Regardless, the Hebrews in the wilderness were sick and tired of manna.
“We detest this miserable food”, they said.
They came to detest the food that God had given them in the wilderness
to keep them alive. And they became sick and tired of wandering in the wilderness.
And, to be honest, they probably became sick and tired of Moses
making them do things they did not want to do.
And, without a doubt, though not mentioned at all in the text,
as the Hebrews waged war upon the Philistines and other tribes,
they certainly lost husbands and sons and brothers.
The text claims that: The Hebrew people became impatient along the way.
The Hebrew word translated as “impatient” is a Hebrew idiom that means
“the people’s soul was shortened”. To be impatient is to have a “short spirit”,
unable to keep one’s temper in check or to remain self-disciplined.
A shortened soul is the opposite of being “long suffering”.
More than impatient, to have a “shortened soul” is to feel helpless,
to feel discouraged, cheerless, even depressed.
(Riggans, Walter. Numbers. Westminster Press, 1983, page 158)
Vernon Gramling wrote in his blog this week that:
“The complaints of the people, however, are very ordinary.
Over and over, we seek to decide how the world (and God) should be.
They had a vision of what salvation and freedom meant.
When they escaped Egypt, they had ‘proof’ of God’s special care and providence.
Once saved, it made no sense at all that their life could include the hardships
of the wilderness (including death by violence and death by serpents).
The ancients expected special dispensation.
After all they were the chosen. Freedom was supposed to bring relief.
They were supposed to live in a land of milk and honey.
What they discovered is that God’s saving acts did not protect them from uncertainty,
hunger, or poisonous snakes…” (Vernon gramling blog, 3/7/24) and of course, warfare.
An interesting aspect of this passage is that the word for “serpents” in the Hebrew
is “seraphim”, the same word used in Isaiah’s vision in the temple,
from Isaiah 6, in which the prophet sees heavenly creatures around the throne of God.
In Isaiah 6, they are angelic servants who fly around God’s throne,
praising and glorifying God in adoration.
In the Numbers 21 text, they are also God’s servants,
but here they have been understood as earthly reptiles that bite the people,
injecting deadly venom. Here they are servants of God’s judgment,
responding to the people’s contempt for God’s gifts and God’s purposes.
As biblical commentator Walter Riggans wrote:
perhaps we should view these seraphim not as earthly reptiles,
but as heavenly messengers, communicating God’s displeasure. (Riggans, p. 158)
Once bitten by the realities of life, once aware of their human frailty
and utter dependence upon the grace of God, the people quickly realize their fault.
They confess their sin before Moses, who intercedes for them before God.
God provides an antidote to the serpent’s venom,
by means of a bronze serpent hung on a pole.
If only the people will look upon the serpent in faith, they will be saved from death.
In the gospel of John, during his visit with Nicodemus, Jesus speaks these words:
And 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. (John 3:14)
The consequences of sin will bring death, but God will bring life.
Simply being human means that we are susceptible to suffering and death,
but when we gaze upon the one lifted up, we discover help and hope and healing.
Paul referred to this event in the book of Numbers in his first century letter
to the church in Corinth. I Corinthians 10:1-11
I do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters,
that our ancestors were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea,
and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea,
and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink.
For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ. Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them,
and they were struck down in the wilderness.
Now these things occurred as examples for us, so that we might not desire evil
as they did. Do not become idolaters as some of them did; as it is written,
‘The people sat down to eat and drink, and they rose up to play.’
We must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did,
and twenty-three thousand fell in a single day.
We must not put the Lord to the test, as some of them did,
and were destroyed by serpents.
And do not complain as some of them did, and were destroyed by the destroyer.
These things happened to them to serve as an example,
and they were written down to instruct us, on whom the ends of the ages have come.
In the view of the Apostle Paul, the serpent event in the wilderness was written down
to instruct future generations not to complain against the Lord.
Other events in the wilderness were told so that the people would learn
not to put the Lord to the test, and not to engage in idolatry or sexual immorality.
At the heart of the issue is whether or not the people will continue to follow God.
Will they continue to follow God’s servant Moses through wilderness wanderings
or will they organize themselves to go back to slavery in Egypt?
Will they follow the path that God has provided them,
a challenging path which will inevitably include all the dangers of being human?
Or will they seek to organize ourselves to go back to how things used to be?
Even back to slavery to sin?
The same questions can be asked of the Church today.
Will we follow the challenging path of God’s will before us?
Or will we try to go back to how life used to be?
Will we try to make things “great again”?
As if life was “great” for everyone in the past?
Have we forgotten so quickly that we were slaves to sin
and that God saved us in our distress?
William Barclay, the famous Scottish scholar, one wrote:
“A Christian is a person who accepts the fact that he or she can never again
do what they like; and that they must forever after do what God likes…
A Christian is one who stops looking at himself and starts looking at God.”
(Barclay, The Lord’s Prayer, p.56)
“God’s saving act in Jesus was to hold up the reality of pain and suffering in the world. God’s saving promise is that no matter what happens to us,
a life of care and mindfulness cannot be destroyed. God is with us in all things.
Think of these things when you look at the cross.” (Vernon)
Though we recognize complications in these Old Testament texts,
the final word on this text is that the “one lifted up” is the antidote
to our “death-oriented sinful lives”. The counter to the effects of sin and death
is none other than Jesus, who was hung on a pole to save us. (Riggans, p. 159)
The call to the ancient Hebrews and the call to the 21st century church
is much the same, whether it is a serpent or a Savior hung on a pole –
look to the Lord your God in faith and trust,
Turn to the Lord and be saved from all that would destroy you.
God is Lord over the fiery serpents; God is Lord of all. Amen.
Rev. Dr. Todd Speed
Decatur Presbyterian Church
Decatur, Georgia
Also very interesting, in II Kings 18:1-8,
In the third year of King Hoshea son of Elah of Israel,
Hezekiah son of King Ahaz of Judah began to reign….Hezekiah did what was right
in the sight of the Lord just as his ancestor David had done.
He removed the high places, broke down the pillars, and cut down the sacred pole.
He broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days
the people of Israel had made offerings to it; it was called Nehushtan.
Hezekiah trusted in the Lord the God of Israel;
so that there was no one like him among all the kings of Judah after him,
or among those who were before him.
For he held fast to the Lord; he did not depart from following him
but kept the commandments that the Lord commanded Moses.
The Lord was with him; wherever he went, he prospered.
He rebelled against the king of Assyria and would not serve him.
He attacked the Philistines as far as Gaza and its territory,
from watch-tower to fortified city.
Here’s the glorification of attacking Gaza again.
The bronze serpent on a pole had been used for pagan worship rituals.
All those years, the symbol of the serpent on a pole had been kept
as a reminder of God’s judgment and healing in the wilderness.
At some point along the way, the symbol had degenerated into practices of idolatry,
of the worship of false gods, some of which may have been serpents.
