Dear Family,
I have been thinking this week about the resurrection of our Lord. My message on this coming Lord’s Day will contain my thoughts on this subject. Please let me know what you think about the “new video” format for the message for this Sunday, April 12, Resurrection Sunday.
There I was, in my office, pondering the connection between the pandemic we are facing right now and the universal pandemic that mankind has faced since the beginning of time.
As I was thinking, I remembered the story found in the 21st chapter of Book of Numbers where this particular account is found;
NU 21:4b-9
“…the [g]people became impatient because of the journey. 5The people spoke against God and 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 miserable food.”
6The Lord sent fiery serpents among the people and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died. 7So the people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned, because we have spoken against the Lord and you; intercede with the Lord, that He may remove the serpents from us.” And Moses
interceded for the people. 8Then the Lord said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a standard; and it shall come about, that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, he will live.” 9And Moses made
a bronze serpent and set it on the standard; and it came about, that if a serpent bit any man, when he looked to the bronze serpent, he lived.”
Here we have the recording of a people who have been singularly blessed by God. Forgetting the fact they have recently been brought out of captivity and delivered through miracle after miracle, the people begin
to murmur against Moses. But not only do they complain against God’s appointed leader, they also complain against God’s provision and against God Himself. God answers with a rhumba of snakes. Not just
ordinary snakes but very deadly snakes who love to bite. The result is that many people die from the poison.
Moses prays, asking the Lord to relent. God has mercy.
All that the Lord asks the people to do to be restored from the deadly poison is to one thing. That one thing is what? The Lord says, “Look at the bronze serpent I had Moses make and you will live!” I find it to be very interesting that the Lord asks only one thing. God says…”Look and live.”
Jesus draws an interesting parallel for us in the Gospels found in JN 3:14-15 where He says this;
“As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; 15so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life.”
Christ does not ask any more of us than what was asked by the Lord through Moses so long ago. In essence Jesus is saying to all of us who are bitten by the snake of sin to do just one thing. That one thing is this,
“Look and live!”
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A Letter from Pastor Steve, April 7, 2020
