A Slithery Story

If some of those folks who went with Moses from Egypt to Canaan had been United Methodists, there never would have been a need for God to tell Moses to make a bronze serpent in the wilderness.  The story of those slithery snakes who came at the call of God to punish the Hebrews for their sins is told in the 21st chapter of Numbers.  Had their been some United Methodists around, they would have created a committee to figure out what to do and then sent out a "mission team" like group with big sticks to beat those snakes back into the bushes.  Ah, but God did not have any United Methodists.  He had something else in mind.

 

What is interesting about the story and something often missed is that even after the bronze serpent was made and set up on a pole for the snake bitten people to look for healing,  the snakes still slithered around and in and out of the camp.  They did not disappear.  Verse 9 of that chapter says, "...when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze serpent they lived."  The assumption is that even after the means for healing and wholeness was provided, people would still be bitten.

 

How true it is that trouble always seems to lurk around us.  Some of it may not be much more than an inconvenience, but some of it is life threatening.  We know God as the source of our healing and wholeness.  We know Jesus as the One who delivers us from our sin.  We know where to look for our Helper, Our Healer, Our Deliver.   But, it is only when we make the final journey into the valley of death that we shall no longer see trouble and danger and difficulty around us.  In the midst of our trouble, our Deliver can be seen, not on a bronze pole, but on a wooden cross.