Jesus and a Pharisee

A few years back we acquired a toy snake. I don’t know how or why. I surely didn’t buy it because I hate snakes. I see them and shiver. The only “good” thing about a toy snake is that you can hide it around the house and scare your unsuspecting teenagers, and even that is only fun until they decide to pay you back. 

I assumed that was what had happened when one day, I came home from the store and upon approaching the front door, noticed something lying across the threshold. Initially I thought it was the toy snake, but this was a different color, and much larger, and was moving! A living, slithering snake was lying wait at my door!

Way, way back when the Israelites were wandering in the wilderness they also had a run in with some snakes. Numbers 21 tells us that the Lord sent fiery serpents as a punishment for Israel’s lack of faith in God, the promise maker and keeper. 

Sometimes it takes a snake bite to bring you back to God. 

The people came to Moses, confession on their lips, seeking a remedy. Moses interceded on their behalf, and the Lord-who specializes in remedies for sin- told him to construct a fiery serpent (copper red to remind them of atonement), and to set it on a pole. Israel, bitten by a snake, needed only to look up at the serpent on the pole, and live. 

Fourteen hundred years later, Nicodemus comes under cover of night and wants to know if this man Jesus is truly sent from God. Jesus tells him of a second birth, a birth of the Spirit that would make him new. Nicodemus believed himself to be safe from judgement through his own adherence to the law: a righteousness he strived to earn on his own. But the law itself could not save him and only reminded him of the curse all of creation groans under. Israel had looked at the serpent on the rod and was saved. Did Nicodemus understand this wisdom from heaven? Would he look to Jesus, high and lifted up, and believe by faith that Jesus could redeem him from the curse by becoming cursed in his stead?

Like Israel and Nicodemus, we suffer under a curse brought about by a snake and our own prideful hearts. Condemned, we hide under cover of night and love the darkness more than the light. Our works are evil and we fear being exposed. 

But God. 

He so loved the world that He gave His only Son, and whoever believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life. He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. This is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Christ’s blood was spilled because sin always costs and without the shedding of blood, there is no remission for sins. 

But God, He gave it all! 

Christ’s blood was shed for our sins. 

The Son of Man has been lifted up. 

The curse is broken. 

The serpent; his end is near. 

We don’t have to perish. 

Look to Jesus, and live!

-Natalie Runyon