The serpent and the cross

The book of Numbers in the Bible (Chapter 20) tells the story of an unusual plague that attacked the Israelites in the desert after they had left Egypt. They were attacked by a large number of snakes. These were poisonous serpents and many of those who had been bitten died. The people realized that this plague had been sent to them by God as a punishment for their continual complaining against Moses and against the Lord. So they asked Moses to pray for deliverance.

Moses prayed. And he was instructed by the Lord to have a statue of a serpent made of bronze and to place this brazen serpent on a pole. Anyone bitten by a snake could look up to the serpent and be healed.

The brazen serpent, thus lifted up on a pole, became an instrument of salvation, of healing.

That bronze serpent lifted up on a pole was a symbol of a future Savior who would also be "lifted up" and thus become a source of salvation. Except that the bronze serpent in the desert merely saved from bodily death, whereas the future Savior would save from the eternal death of the soul.

It was Jesus Christ himself who called attention to this symbolic meaning of the bronze serpent in the desert. A wealthy and influential gentleman named Nicodemus, a member of the ruling Jewish Sanhedrin, came secretly to Jesus at night. It was to him that Jesus revealed what the bronze serpent in the desert meant: "Just as Moses in the desert lifted up the serpent, so the Son of Man must be lifted up." And the reason: "So that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life." (John 3.14)

Jesus went on to say: "God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that those who believe in him may not perish but may have eternal life." And he explained: "God did not send his Son to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him." (John 3.16-17)

Jesus was predicting that he would be "lifted up": that is, nailed to the cross. Just as the bronze serpent lifted up on a pole was an instrument of salvation for the Israelites in the desert, so Jesus, thus "lifted up", would be an instrument of salvation for all mankind. He was paying the penalty of the sins of all mankind. The penalty for sins thus wiped away, anyone who believed in Jesus would be saved from eternal death.

On another occasion Jesus again emphasized the saving power of his suffering and death on a cross. He said, "And I, when I am lifted up, I shall draw all things to myself."

This coming Friday – Good Friday – we shall again be commemorating the "lifting up" of Jesus on the cross. This is a good time to reflect on what Jesus did for us, how much he suffered for us.

What are we doing for him in return?