Christ Lifted Up

So close, and yet so far.

That phrase has a sting to it, doesn’t it? When your destination is right there. When what you’ve longed for is finally within sight. When you can feel the finish line in your bones… and suddenly the road you’re on dissolves beneath your feet.

Israel knew that feeling.

The Promised Land was in view. The horizon wasn’t just hope anymore. It was geography. Mountains rising like the edges of God’s painted promise. Everything in them said, “We’re almost home.”

Then Edom said, No.

Permission denied. Road closed. Detour.

The long way around.

Not back into comfort. Not back into Egypt where at least the rivers ran deep. No. Back into the oven heat of the wilderness. Back into rocks and vipers and thirst and waiting.

You can almost hear the groan move through the camp like a slow wave of despair.

“So close… and now we are farther than ever.”

The text says their souls grew short. Their patience ran out. The wide freedom of God’s deliverance suddenly felt tight and suffocating. Liberation turned into claustrophobia.

When disappointment lingers long enough, frustration becomes its native tongue.

They began to speak against Moses… but eventually the mask slipped and they spoke against God. Complaint always works its way to the top.

“Why have you brought us out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? There is no bread! There is no water! We hate this miserable food!”

The same manna that saved their lives and sustained them day after day suddenly became “worthless” in their eyes. Grace became boring. Miracle became monotony.

Breakfast manna.

Lunch manna.

Dinner manna.

Repeat.

Even the extraordinary becomes invisible when the heart stops giving thanks.

That still happens.

Blessings we begged for can become burdens we complain about. The job we prayed to get becomes the job we grumble through. The marriage we once celebrated becomes the relationship we resent. The Savior who rescued us becomes the One we question when life isn’t what we imagined.

Israel isn’t a strange foreign story.

Israel is a mirror.

And what that mirror shows is not flattering.

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The Snakes

So God sends snakes.

Venomous. Crawling. Striking. Pain rising fast through the limbs. Fire in the veins. People falling to the desert floor.

It feels harsh to us. It feels unfitting for a God of mercy. But Scripture is painfully honest: the venom that appeared around them first existed within them. The serpents slithering through the camp simply revealed the serpent that was already whispering in their spirits.

They had become bitten from the inside long before the fangs pierced their skin.

And the people realize it. Their complaint melts into confession.

“Moses! We have sinned! We have spoken against the Lord! Ask God to take the snakes away!”

Moses prays. God does hear. God always hears confession prayed through an intercessor.

But God does not remove the serpents.

He gives them something stranger.

He instructs Moses to take bronze, shape a serpent, and lift it up on a pole. Anyone bitten who looks upon that image will live.

You couldn’t invent a more paradoxical cure if you tried.

The very thing that revealed their sin becomes the very thing God uses to heal them.

That’s not just clever imagery. That’s a preview of the plan of salvation.

There is only one cure to the venom of sin:

Look and live.

Not look and improve.

Not look and fix yourself.

Not look and prove yourself worthy.

Not look and earn anything.

Just look… and live.

Healing does not rise from human effort. It falls from divine provision.

Salvation is not a ladder to climb. It is a Savior lifted up.

This is grace in its purest form.

God did not ask the bitten to walk. Some couldn’t.

God did not ask them to run. Many would stumble.

God did not ask them to fight. They had no strength.

God asked them to look.

The bitten were saved by beholding.

Deliverance was in the direction of their gaze.

The wilderness remedy is the gospel in miniature.

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The Venom That Still Strikes

Let’s not miss something important: the snakes were still there.

God did not give them a quick escape from a hard world. He gave them a way to live in the midst of it. The serpents still coiled. The fangs still sank into flesh. The wounds were still real.

Grace does not always change our environment. Grace changes the outcome.

Death does not always leave us.

Fear does not always evaporate.

Pain does not always disappear.

But Christ does not allow the venom to define the verdict.

To live in a broken world is to feel the bite. To live under a lifted Savior is to refuse the bite the final word.