Covenant: Snakes
God Brings Us Through the Wilderness
Numbers 21:4-9
Rev. Tim Callow
Preached Sun. March 14th, 2021
God brings the Israelites through the wilderness into the promised land because we all face the wilderness in our lives. The wilderness is a place of trial, it is a place of longing, it is a place of suffering, of hunger and of thirst. We face the wilderness when a loved one dies, and our world seems to collapse. We face the wilderness when we watch someone we love suffer, and perhaps we face the realization of how little there is we can do to help. We face the wilderness when we get sick, and the nagging illness doesn’t go away. We face the wilderness when there is trouble at work, or a disagreement in the family. So much of our life can be consumed by wilderness wandering. The Bible focuses so much on the wanderings of the Israelites because of the Bible’s relentless realism.
I had mentioned before that we can be really pessimistic today. Perhaps the reason so many people are pessimistic is because so many people expect to be happy. Now, don’t get me wrong. God wants us all to be happy. Holiness is happiness. But somehow along the way we got the wrong idea about happiness. We think happiness is chemicals in the brain, or a pleasant state of mind. When happiness has more to do with one’s whole life.
In his Histories Herodotus recounts the story of Solon and King Croesus. Solon was one of the Seven Sages of Greece, renown for giving Athens her laws and establishing her constitution. As Herodotus recounts the legend King Croesus had summoned Solon to his court and showed him all his great riches and asked Solon whether he was the happiest man in the world. Solon replied that there were three who were happier than Croesus, one because he died in battle and the two others because the goddess had granted them a happy death. The point being that happiness is not merely an emotional state, but characterizes one’s whole life, “don’t call anyone happy until they are dead” Solon advised. Croesus would later lose his son, his wife, his wealth, and his nation, and died bitter and sad.
King Croesus hubristically thought he was happy, when in reality his happiness was only fleeting. He did not have the true happiness that comes from living life well. So when Croesus met the wilderness of his life he was ill-prepared, and succumbed to the suffering. Too often that’s what people do. They meet the wilderness, and they succumb to their hunger and thirst. The Israelites do as much in our reading this morning. They are tired of their wanderings, tired of quail and manna and miraculous water. They are tired of battle. So they lash out at God. “Did you bring us out here to die?” they ask.
So God makes the snakes to come, and they bite the Israelites so that many of them died. They turn to God and ask for deliverance. God tells Moses to make a bronze serpent and lift it high, and all who look upon the serpent in the wilderness will live. Moses does make the serpent, the people do look upon the serpent, and their wounds are healed. The snakes disappear. In this moment, they are saved.
Jesus tells us this morning that the serpent signified himself. As the serpent was raised in the wilderness the Israelites wandered, so too he is raised in our own wilderness. And as the Israelites looked upon the snake and lived, if we believe in Jesus’ name we too will live. We too will be carried through the wilderness in our own lives. We too will find healing. And we may be made happy.
We will be made happy not because we will not have to enter the wilderness. God never covenants that we will not have to go through the wilderness. He dearly loved the Hebrews, but they too had to enter the wilderness. But we can be happy in a deeper sense. We can be happy in that we are given “the peace that surpasses all understanding” as Paul writes in Philippians. In that same letter Paul writes that he has learned the secret of being content in all circumstances. That secret to being content in all circumstances is trusting in the promise. In looking to Jesus. In knowing that we are members of a covenant. Knowing that God is stronger than all we may encounter. And he leads the way.
The covenants God has made have never been about avoiding suffering. Though the day is coming when every tear will be wiped away from our eyes. But God does promise that he will be with us, and that he is nearer to us than we are to ourselves. He promises that we will make it through the wilderness. He has sent his Son to be lifted up, that we may believe in his name and live. And he promises that in spite of it all, we may know happiness. Not in the fleeting sense, but in the sense of having lived a good and holy life. A life that Christ makes possible.