Introduction
That whole snake-on-a-pole thing must have sounded insane to some of the Israelites. Stare at a bronze serpent and you’ll be healed? That sounds ridiculous. It must’ve sounded just silly enough that some Israelites started looking for more reasonable solutions to the snake bites.
In our minds this night, let us take a journey back in time to see how some of the Israelites may have reacted to God’s Word about the bronze snake on the pole.
Main Body
I see right away that some folks back in Moses’ day began the time-honored discussion of why bad things happen to good people. I can just imagine the more sensitive among the Israelites listening to a particular elder; we’ll call him Elder Self Esteem. Now Elder Self Esteem couldn’t bear telling the people that these poisonous vipers were the result of God’s judgment on their bad behavior. He didn’t want to wound people’s self-worth and inflict irreparable damage on their sensitive inner-child. So instead of directing people to the snake on the pole, he set up support groups, hoping to make people feel better about themselves. And, it’s true, the people did have high self-esteem--but they still died, because they never bothered looking at the snake on the pole.
We can chuckle about that story, but don’t we think the same way? Don’t we prefer pastors who tell great stories in their sermons and make us feel good about ourselves instead of making us squirm in our seats, exposing the specific things each of us has done wrong? What happens when sermons only make us feel good about ourselves? We never see that we’ve been bitten by sin and are dying. And we never look to the snake on the pole--I mean, the Christ on the cross--to get the life that God is giving.
Let’s look at some others ways that the Israelites could have responded to the snake on a pole. One spiritual-looking elder in camp believed that the real problem was the people’s lack of faith. “We need to speak faith into this situation,” Elder Look Within shouted. Now he said that he wasn’t against the snake on the pole. But he said that it’s faith that saves, and so Elder Look Within taught people to look to their own faith for salvation instead of looking at some impossible-to-believe snake on a pole. What did it matter, anyway? The snake merely represented what God was doing. And so some of these inward-looking people died because they refused to look at the snake on the pole.
Some in the camp were angered that Moses, a man, wouldn’t allow women to help hold up the snake on the pole. One woman was heard to say, “I’m not going to look at any ‘snake on a pole’ that only men are allowed to hold up.” Soon after that she died of snakebite and a candlelight vigil was held in her honor.
A major point of contention for some became the inspiration of Moses. Did God really say to Moses to do this snake-on-a-pole thing? One group led by Elder Higher Criticism felt that this was merely Moses’ opinion. Any healings that had taken place could easily be explained by natural causes. But wouldn’t you know it: Elder Higher Criticism fooled many people, especially as he liked to lead worship in a way that looked, sounded, and smelled like true, Old Testament worship of Yahweh with ritual, chanting, and incense.
Another group doggedly defended the divine inspiration of Moses. Elder Fundamental led this group. He wanted worship to be simple and easy, because he didn’t want to seem like he was in league with Elder Higher Criticism. But sadly, Elder Fundamental’s overreactions reduced the opportunities for people to see the snake on the pole. What was really important to him was that people realize that what Moses said was true. However, when people were wondering if what Moses said was true, they weren’t looking at the snake, and some died.
One elder believed that each person had to decide for the snake, on whether or not to look at the snake on the pole. And so Elder Make A. Decision concentrated on that. Elder Decision began having large gatherings where he would first condemn the horror of poisonous vipers and later invite the people to come forward and decide to look at the snake on the pole. After some had decided to look at the snake, they began to sing songs that centered on--not on how God had chosen to save them through the snake--but on how they had chosen to decide to look at the snake. How strange, singing songs that focused on them instead of God and how He had saved them through the snake.
One elder agreed that the situation was, indeed, very drastic. But he thought the idea of immediately directing people to a snake on the pole was a bad business model. “We should find out what people are looking for,” he said. Elder Synagogue Growth asserted that it might take up to six months of working with “snake-seekers” before they would be willing to look at the snake on the pole. So instead, he asked the people what they wanted. Some wanted aerobics so that they could more quickly run away from the snakes. Others wanted to learn real-life, practical principles for living in a camp infested with snakes on the loose. Others wanted only to get together and sing lighthearted, emotional songs and forget about the snakes. While they waited for people to be willing to look at the snake on the pole, many died.
Elder Moderate, a new leader within the camp, felt that his reasoning had advanced beyond everyone else’s. He simply smiled at all the incessant doctrinal purification. “People, please,” he begged, “The differences we have about the snake on the pole aren’t a big deal; they’re just mere matters of practical application. Can’t we all just get along?”
Yes, can’t we all just get along? We may not want to compromise God’s doctrine--but we do want peace. We don’t want turmoil, so we’re tempted to feel like peace at all costs may be the best approach, too. Why raise an uproar? Why cause a commotion? And so we take the wide and easy way instead of the straight and narrow, and sometimes hard road, that God bids us to walk. [long pause]
Perhaps, some of these stories make you uncomfortable. A couple of them make me wince in discomfort. That’s God’s Law hissing in our ears, striking at our sinful flesh about the sins we have in the way we deal with God.
When the poisonous snakes attacked, God had set up only one way for the children of Israel to survive. Everything else had to be rejected. They had to look up at the bronze snake that Moses made and placed upon the pole. If they were bitten and did this, they would live; if not, they would die. It didn’t matter what else they did, how they felt, how spiritual they seemed, if they prayed to the transcendent Father in heaven, or sought the immediate aid of the Spirit. If they didn’t look at the bronze snake, they would die. For that snake on the pole was how God said He would come to them and save them.
Do you find yourself struggling against God, wanting to have things your own way? Can you feel the snake-bites? Whatever snakes have slithered into your life, they are there to turn your heart back to God, to cause you to fall before Him, and admit that you are a wretched, dying sinner--just like I am.
Thanks be to God, we have the same way out that the Israelites did. Of course, not a bronze snake, but the God who stood behind the bronze snake. The power of the cure of the snake on the pole lay in God’s Word of promise. Without God’s command and promise, looking up at that bronze snake would have been stupid and foolish. But because God said it was so, it was so: the snake on the pole brought life to those in the throes of death. Those who trusted God’s promise looked at the snake and lived. Those who refused to believe that something so stupid and unreasonable could save them never looked at the snake. They died--although God’s promise and healing were offered to them and meant for them.
Jesus is the anti-venom for the snake-bite of the Law; the cure resembles the sickness. Why did God put that snake on the pole? Not just to save the Israelites from death, but to show us how He was going to save you and me from death. The snake on the pole pointed forward to Jesus’ crucifixion for our sins. As John 3 says, “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him may have eternal life.” (John 3:14-15).
Jesus, who knew no sin, was made sin for us so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. God laid the sin of the world--your sin and my sin--on His Son made Man. He nailed Him to the wood of the cross and raised Him high--not on a pole, but on a cross--for the entire world to see. Here we see the image of our sin and God’s wrath. The Son hangs dead, forsaken by His Father, cursed and damned in our place. How despicable He looks! People turn away and hide their faces.
Do not join them. Do not look away from that gory cross. No matter how stupid it may seem, that instrument of execution is God’s way of saving you. On the pole, the Israelites saw their healing and God’s mercy. On the cross, we see our healing and God’s mercy. As Isaiah the Prophet wrote, “By His wounds we are healed” (Is.53:5). There but by the grace of God go we. There but by the grace of God goes He for us!
Yet, we cannot run to the cross and receive Jesus’ blood-bought forgiveness. Oh, I can tell you to look at the cross for healing, but the cross that Jesus died on is no more. Even if it did exist, Jesus isn’t there. So where can you look today to see the Christ on the cross? Where can you find Him here in Kimberling City? You can find God where He tells you to look for Him. Just as God told the Israelites to look at some foolish-looking bronze snake hanging on a pole for life, so He tells us to look to seemingly foolish things to find Christ hanging on a tree, and so live.
God says look for the crucified Christ in Water, Words, Bread and Wine. He says to you men and women, boys and girls, who are all “sons of Adam,” as our psalm for today will put it in a few minutes--now also, as St. Paul wrote, “you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you who have been baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ” (Galatians 3:26-27). God says, “As many of you who have heard your pastor absolve your sins, you’ve been forgiven by the crucified Christ.” And God says, “As many of you who have received this bread and wine, you’ve received the body and blood of the Christ, crucified for your sins.”
In Baptism, the Absolution, and the Lord’s Supper, your pastor makes the sign of the cross over you. I don’t do this because I’m superstitious. I make the sign of the cross to remind you that the forgiveness in Baptism, the forgiveness in the Absolution, and the forgiveness in the Supper all flow directly from the Christ who hung on the cross for you.
Conclusion
Let nothing--nothing!--turn your attention from your snake on the pole--let nothing distract you from your Savior on the cross. Confess your sins, and hear God’s sin-slaying word of forgiveness spoken to you in the Absolution. Soak up your Lord’s preached word that puts His promises into your very ears. Run to the Supper, where Life itself is poured down your throats. Through such seemingly silly ways, God gives to you--not a snake on the pole--but His Son on the cross. Through these means of grace, God gives to you His anti-venom, His medicine of immortality, for the forgiveness of your sins. For where there is the forgiveness of sins, there is also life and salvation. Amen.
