Good Morning, I love meeting new people! I am glad to meet you. My name is Abraham, which, lately, I can’t help feel is more ironic that I ever realized it was. You see Abraham is the Father of all nations; he is person I was taught about by my Rabbi ever since I can remember. And the one word that people associate with Abraham is, “Faith.” I have not always been a man of great faith.
It has been a problem my whole life. Ever since I was born almost 40 years ago. My mom tells me that I was among the first babies born after we crossed the Red Sea. That the people rejoiced at my birth because I was among the first generation of those born free. We were no longer under the thumb of the Egyptian Pharaoh. We were no longer to be used as cheap labor and dehumanized and used as pack animals. There was so much to celebrate! God had just done miraculous thing after miraculous thing in order to save us. Thing were looking up for us as a people.
But the truth is, the rejoicing didn’t last very long at all. Soon we found plenty to complain about and plenty of reasons to grumble, and whine, and complain. Moses got tired of it. He would talk to God and refer to us as “Those people,” not as “my people, or your people,” but as those people. I remember my mom saying something similar once when I stole some my friend’s toy when I was a little kid. She looked at my Dad and said, “You won’t believe what your son just did!” Not “my son,’ or, “our son.” But “YOUR SON!” I could tell she was really frustrated with me. And even more so, we could tell that God was getting really frustrated with us as a people.
He had good reason to. It all started before I was old enough to remember. It was early on in our freedom from Egypt that God wanted to give us the Promised Land of Canaan. We sent 12 spies into the land to check it out and to see the wonder of the place God promised to give us. But there was a problem. 10 out of 12 of the spies came back and said, “We can’t attack those people, they are stronger than we are!”
Caleb and Joshua tried to tell us that God had promised us the land and would be faithful to give it to us. But the people started grumbling and weeping and complaining to Moses and Aaron saying, “If only we had died in Egypt! Or in this desert! Why is the Lord brining us to this land only to have us die by the sword?” The Lord should have let us die out there in the desert. But he didn’t. He wanted to prepare us to go into the land with faith, and reliance upon Him so he did something drastic. He said you will have the Promised Land, but not before you wander in the desert for 40 years and see how I can take care of you.
And he did. He protected us from our enemies. When we were stuck in places without food, He gave us bread that fell out of heaven that we called Manna. When we needed water, he caused it to gush forth from the rocks of the desert. When were in danger, he protected us. All incredible miracles. All means by which God kept us alive when anyone else would have died. But the most awful thing of all, is how ungrateful we all were from time to time. Even after seeing God’s hand work directly in front of our own eyes, we still lacked faith, we were still ungrateful, we still complained against God.
The latest event however, was one of the worst. We had been wandering in the wilderness now for almost the entire 40 years and we were on out way to the Promised Land. Our spirits were high because we were approaching the Land of Edom. And once we got there among the Edomites we were sure these descendants of Esau, our distant relatives would give us safe passage into Canaan. We would be days away from the goal we had waited so long for. Just a few days journey along the easy road called the “King’s Highway.” But we were shocked to learn that this would not happen. The king of Edon rejected our request to go through his land and he even sent a huge detachment of troops out to ensure we didn’t try it.
We got angry. We were angry at the thought of being in the desert longer than we wanted. We were angry at the thought of having to travel one more hard mountain road. We were angry that we would not be eating the fruits and meats and Edom but once more would be relying upon a diet of manna, manna, and more manna. Worst of all, we got angry at God. I am so ashamed that I was among the complainers. I fed into this forgetfulness of all that God had done for me, for our people over these many years. I raised my voice 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 loathe this worthless food,” I said.
Do you ever do that? Do you ever complain to God, or grumble about your circumstances. Do you ever forget the trials and tough spots that God has brought you through? Why do we forget? Why do we treat the ONE who has saved us and delivers us time and time again as if he were the cause of all our problems? The truth is, it wasn’t God who desired for us to be in the desert in the first place. We are to blame, not him! But I forgot about God’s goodness. I have done it so many times in my life.
But this complaint was worse. We were not only rejecting the manna, or grumbling about our time in the desert. What we were really saying was God I reject you. God I can’t stand you. God I don’t need you and am tired of you. God had protected us for so long, but he gave us a glimpse into a scary reality. He sent snakes with deadly poison that burned like fire. And we saw very quickly what life would be like if God truly did decide to let us go it alone. If God truly did decide to lift his arm of protection and hand of provision.
Many of us were bitten and many people died. It was so awful. We realized that we were helpless without God. We realized that we had said and felt some horrible things about the ONE who had been looking out for us in love for all these years. We realized that we were wrong. So we went in humility to Moses, God’s representative. A man we had been saying awful things about, to ask for forgiveness. We said, “We have sinned, for we have spoken against the LORD and against you. Pray to the LORD, that he take away the serpents from us.”
Moses didn’t have to. He himself could have said, you have had more than enough chances and now I am finished with you. But he didn’t. He prayed to God. And God who had every right to answer his prayers on our behalf with silence, spoke. The Lord said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live.”
So Moses went out and made a bronze serpent and placed it on a wooden pole. And it was a blessing to us beyond measure. I especially was thankful for God’s mercy upon us because I too was bit, along with my daughter and my wife. The bites burned so horribly, and normally would have been a death sentence. But we went out and looked up and we lived. God’s mercy was given to us yet again. And when I look at my family, I am reminded that God has been so much better to me than I deserve.
After this was all over, I had a chance to think about everything. It seemed odd to me at first that God would have Moses make a serpent of bronze to raise up to save us from the serpents. But after I thought about it, I realized that it makes perfect sense. It wasn’t the bronze snake that saved us, not at all. But the bronze snake showed us the power of our God to save us. You see, when we looked up and saw that lifeless, still, powerless statue. We realized that God was showing us that he was turning this deadly threat of snakes into a lifeless, still, powerless threat. He can defeat any enemy, or obstacle, or treat. He can rescue us from a death sentence and give us life.
With all these snakes around, I couldn’t help but be reminded of an even bigger problem than snake bites. The problem that was brought about in the very beginning when the Devil appeared to Adam and Eve in the form of a snake. He tempted them to fall into sin, and they did. He changed everything by introducing sin, and shame, and death into a world and into people who were once perfect and holy. But even all the way back then, God did not abandon his people. He promised that one would come who would finally defeat the serpent. One would come to be the Messiah, the Savior, who would defeat death and sin itself.
God said to that snake, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between her offspring and yours. He will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.” One day that offspring will come and will do just that. He will come and defeat the final enemy. He will crush the devil, he will destroy Sin, he will win for his people and everlasting freedom. As we wander toward the Promised Land I realize that this Savior will win an even better promised land for us. A land with no sin, no tears, and no shame.
I wonder when he will come. I wonder how he will be lifted up. I don’t know all the details, but I know he is coming. I also know that he will never abandon you that he will always call you “my Son or my Daughter.” I know that that somehow he show us that sin and death are now powerless. That we will look up to him and live forever. Shalom and blessings to you.
(HAVE SOMEONE FROM THE BACK OF THE CHURCH READ JOHN 3:14-16)
“And 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, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”
