Look and Live

Scripture:   Numbers 21:8 - And the Lord said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live.

Okay. It is interesting to note of this pericope, such a presentation preceding, perhaps even laying the groundwork for one of the most familiar texts in the Bible, John 3:16, "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him, should not perish, but have eternal life."  John 3:14 declares "And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up."

The Israelites were expressing their inward wilderness while wandering in the frontier of geographic wilderness which separated them from the land of promise so hoped for.  Whatever worshipfulness they had, had waxed cold, enough to misremember their slavery, and minimize their deliverances, to wind up bemoaning God Himself, God's guy Moses, and God's gift of manna.  So God sent them something to moan about, but not without a remedy.  As they cried out in response to being bitten by God-sent snakes, some dying and agonizing from this, naturally came the cry to take the snakes away.  God, though, worked it out differently [His ways not being ours], and had His guy Moses to make a brass snake, to be put on a pole. [scripture does not say how long it took ol' Moses to make a brass snake, but I digress]  With that, the instruction to Moses from God was to have those rascals look at the raised model snake- to look and live, and those which did, survived their snake bites.
Believing God brought relief.

We are called upon to look where the looking matters most, but distractions abound.  Our loud world hits our hearts and our minds weightily with so many messages, so many woeful, even new, having a pandemic with the name Covid-19, almost noisy enough to drown out global warming, looming wars, economic trouble, nuclear threat, crime and poverty, rampant indifference, community collapse, political corruption, prenatal and postnatal autocide, and perverse proclivities without end.  May we never drift so much that our primary looking, and affection waxes cold for Jesus.  As the sirens blare, as the gunshots sound, as the snake hisses, and as our sniffles come, let us remember when God moved for our sake, and repent.
Are you moaning today?

Prayer:  Lord, lead me to have a certain resilience across this curious season, even for the outworking of this day, that I may bless You, and those you put in my way.  Quicken within me Father, that which has been dearly put, that blessed hope which walks well.  Stir me to LOOK AND LIVE, because "He lives". Stir me to show "Jesus saves."  Amen.

(by Dr. McNeal Brockington)