e-vo for week of March 14

Dearest e-votees-

This week’s appointed Old Testament text is the snake with a name—Nehushtan (see 2 Kings 18:4).

May we be blessed as we linger with the story that sets up John 3:16 and following.

Peace,
Karl

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4 From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; but the people became impatient on the way. 5 The people spoke 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 detest this miserable food." 6 Then the Lord sent poisonous serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many Israelites died. 7 The people came to Moses and said, "We have sinned by speaking against the Lord and against you; pray to the Lord to take away the serpents from us." So Moses prayed for the people. 8 And the Lord said to Moses, "Make a poisonous serpent, and set it on a pole; and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live." 9 So Moses made a serpent of bronze, and put it upon a pole; and whenever a serpent bit someone, that person would look at the serpent of bronze and live.

Numbers 21:4-9, NRSV

This story starts out with malcontents grumbling about God’s faithful and miraculous provision of manna.

They complain against God and against Moses that there is no food (even though God has provided enough manna for everyone every day and a double portion to tide them over on the Sabbath).

They complain against God and against Moses that there is no water even though God, through Moses and Aaron, provided water miraculously from a rock at Meribah. There are even some rabbinic legends that the rock followed them about in the wilderness providing continuous water (1 Corinthians 10:4 perhaps references or refashions those legends).

The Lord responds by sending poisonous serpents which kill many.

The people come to Moses confessing their sin against God and against Moses. They ask Moses to pray to God to take away the servants. Moses prays for the people. The Lord tells Moses to fashion a bronze serpent and to put it on a pole.

All who were bit and looked upon the bronze serpent were spared death from the poison of the serpent.

So impressed with the powers of this bronze serpent that the people named it Nehushtan and it became an object of worship (neglecting the prohibition of graven images).

Where are we in this account? Where are all people? Where might we find Adam and Eve?

How many of us are well provided for through God’s faithful and miraculous provision? How many of all people are well-provided for through God’s faithful hand? How well were Adam and Eve set up in Eden?

Yet many of us complain to God that things aren’t the way we want. Many of all people grouch that they don’t have what they want. How easily were Adam and Eve seduced by the poisonous serpent that enticed them to taste the fruit of the forbidden knowledge of good and evil?

We and they complain that we have no food when we have so much more than we need to eat.

We and they complain that we have no drink when we have so much more than we need to drink.

The poisonous grumbling and coveting and maneuvering take their toll. Death comes to us—sometimes quickly and sometimes in fits and starts—yet it comes.

The son of God, the descendant of Adam and Eve, comes to engage the poisons that have set in. He is put up on the cross just as Nehushtan was raised on the pole. Anyone who looks at Christ can be made well. The poison, the death, has lost its sting. That is the good news.


God, stir us to turn our eyes to Jesus—on the cross—and to be made well. Teach us to receive from you with thankfulness and joy rather than grumbling and malcontentedness. Have your way in our lives. Help us point others to look at Jesus and his work on the cross—and live. Amen.