St. Matthew’s Ev. Lutheran Church + Benton Harbor, Michigan

The 4^th Sunday in Lent, April 2, 2000

Numbers 21:4-9

“Look Up and Live”

By Pastor Timothy H. Buelow

They traveled from Mount Hor along the route to the Red Sea, to go around Edom. But the people grew impatient on the way; ⁵ They spoke against God and against Moses, and said, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the desert? There is no bread! There is no water! And we detest this miserable food!” ⁶ Then the Lord sent venomous snakes among them; they bit the people and many Israelites died. ⁷ The people came to Moses and said, “We sinned when we spoke against the Lord and against you. Pray that the Lord will take the snakes away from us.” So Moses prayed for the people. ⁸ The Lord said to Moses, “Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live.” ⁹ So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, he lived.

Dear friends in Christ,

Of all of the incidents recorded in the Bible, the one in our text strikes us as perhaps one of the most unusual. “Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live,” Moses was told. And we wonder to ourselves, perhaps: “Why a snake? Why put it up on a pole? Why ask people to look at a snake on a pole in order to live? What could God possibly have had in mind?” Of course our Gospel Lesson gives us the biggest and most important clue in understanding this unusual command when it uses this incident in comparison to the cross of Christ: “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life” (Jn 3:14-15). By referring to our text in this way, Jesus himself showed Nicodemus and us that the snake on the pole was actually a picture or type of Christ himself.

The children of Israel were troublesome people. They were troublesome for their earthly leader, Moses, whom God had appointed as the prophet and ruler. They were troublesome for God who had rescued them from slavery in Egypt. Somehow, out of this nation of Jacob’s descendants, God had to fulfill the covenant he had made on oath to the patriarchs, to establish them in the promised land as his people through whom the Savior of the nations would one day come. The Israelites didn’t make that easy for God. They fought him every step of the way. The biggest and most stubborn and most difficult obstacle they raised was their lack of faith and trust in God. That was the cause of all their other rebelliousness. What they needed was to learn to trust. They needed to learn to “Look Up And Live.”

1. God Disciplines Persistent Grumblers

One of the most obvious proofs of their lack of trust and faith was their persistent ingratitude that showed itself in their repeated grumbling. Moses reports:

They traveled from Mount Hor along the route to the Red Sea, to go around Edom. But the people grew impatient on the way; They spoke against God and against Moses, and said, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the desert? There is no bread! There is no water! And we detest this miserable food!”

The children of Israel were testy. Delays and setbacks, designed by God to test and prove and refine their faith proved too much for them to handle in their unspiritual state. They were faced with a minor setback in having to travel around Edom, because the people of Edom, fearing their great number, had denied them the right of passage through their territory on their way to Canaan. But that one minor setback, as is so often the case with us too, offered a springboard from which to think negatively and pessimistically about just about everything. They began to think of plenty of other things to complain about, starting with the food, calling it, literally, ‘starvation rations.’

With such a negative and ungrateful mind-set filling their thinking, they quickly and completely forgot all about the wonderful blessings the Lord had given them. But worst of all, they completely lost sight of their goal: the promised land, the promise of prosperity there and a permanent dwelling place, and above all the promise of the Savior.

God had never let them down—all they had to do was to ask, and they would receive. That had always been their experience. God had preserved their clothing and shoes in perfect condition through forty years of wilderness wandering—a miracle. God had provided them food from heaven—another miracle. But in ungratefulness, they instantly forgot to count on God’s compassion.

The children of Israel had an attitude, a bad attitude. You probably know personally how it works. Just as it’s possible to view the world through rose-colored glasses, it’s also all to easy to view everything through a gray pair. But such a grumbling, ungrateful, pessimistic attitude is sinful. It betrays lack of trust. St. Paul wrote that he had learned the secret of being content in any and all circumstances, and the secret was remembering that we can do all things through Christ. Faith in the promised Christ, however was not to be found in these people.

You see, grumbling, complaining, pessimism, ungratefulness, lack of contentment are opposites of faith and trust. In full grown, full-blown form they betray apostasy, the loss of faith. Unbelief is the worst sin of all. Unbelief caused their complaining and grumbling, and unbelief separated them from the love and blessings that God wanted so dearly to shower upon them.

We also have complained more than our fair share about God’s provision of food and other physical blessings, not because the blessings weren’t abundant and good, but because we wanted ‘better.’ For us too, so much of it is mind-set—ingratitude versus contentment—ingratitude that betrays lack of trust in God.

Through it all, God still maintained his attitude of grace toward them. He wanted to love them, forgive and heal them. Rather than write them off and just start over with other people, God called them to repentance so He could forgive and renew them. Then the Lord sent venomous snakes among them; they bit the people and many Israelites died.

Serious rebellion required a serious wake up call from God, and that is what he gave. For those already completely hardened in their hearts against God, their last chance had come and gone and they died in their unbelief. But God’s plague was not indiscriminate. If it had been he would have wiped them all out. For those in whom there was still some faith and still some hope of repentance, the chastisement of holy fear caused by their own sickness and in seeing so many of their brethren die in their sin had its desired effect ... repentance.

The people came to Moses and said, “We sinned when we spoke against the Lord and against you. Pray that the Lord will take the snakes away from us.” So Moses prayed for the people.

Sometimes, God has to discipline us too. He might lead us through some hard times to teach us to stop putting our faith in ourselves and learn anew to rely on him. God might put a person in the hospital to awaken him to the neglect of His Word. When God disciplines us, it’s because he loves us. And it is because we are all sinners, that we all need God’s discipline. God’s goal is to lead us closer to him through daily contrition and repentance. He wants us to remember that we depend on him for everything: our physical needs, but most importantly, for life and forgiveness. And that brings us to God’s ultimate goal, to let us rejoice and revel in his mercy and forgiveness and the eternal life he gives us.

2. God Heeds Their Prayers For Forgiveness

Moses prayed for the people. [So] the Lord said to Moses, “Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live.” So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole.

God’s solution was designed to reawaken faith in his recalcitrant children. What an unusual solution it was! A snake on a pole? But there was method to God’s ‘madness.’ Remember what Paul said in last Sunday’s epistle lesson? “The foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom.” In order to be healed, the grumbling Israelites, who had insolently arrogated to themselves the office of judging God, and proclaiming him a cruel fool, would have to adopt a totally new and different attitude toward God. Rather than judging him and his word, they would have to completely rely on him and his word—something they hadn’t done for a long time. This is precisely what they Lord wanted to teach them. And when they learned that, when they looked in faith at the pole, trusting God’s promise, they were healed.

How similar this is to what God tells us to do. He tells us that in the ordinary water of baptism, connected with his Word and promise, that we are cleansed of all our sins and made his children. In order for us to receive the blessings of baptism, we have to forsake our skeptical and arrogant attitudes and simply and wholly trust in God’s Word and promise, and when we do, we are healed. Likewise, God tells us to eat and drink bread and wine, consecrated by His own words, and that we are receiving in and with the bread and wine his own body and blood for the forgiveness of sins. Reason and senses cannot tell us how this could possibly be. It requires complete, childlike faith on our part, but when trusting in his Word we heed his invitation, he gives us healing for our souls.

So also with the snake, the power of the cure lay in the words of the promise. Without God’s command and promise, looking up at that bronze snake would have been idolatrous foolishness. But you see no hesitation on the part of Moses, because of the Lord’s promise that there would be healing in looking obediently and trustingly at that pole. Those who trusted the words looked at the snake and lived. Those who did not, died, even though God’s promise and healing was offered them, too.

What an unusual symbol God chose, to teach the truth of his future plans. But our Gospel lesson makes clear God’s ultimate lesson on that pole: “For just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that all who believe in Him may have eternal life.” “For God so loved the world, that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life” (Jn 3:16).

In penitence, God would have us to look up to Jesus on the cross, trust in Him and be healed and live.

Fellow Christians, God asks us to do many things which by logical human standards are absurd. Foremost among them is the demand of faith. Believe in Jesus Christ, crucified for your sins, and you will be saved. Believe that in Baptism you were given faith, forgiveness and eternal life. Believe that in the Lord’s Supper you receive Christ’s body and blood in with and under bread and wine. Believe that through Christ’s body and blood you who believe are given a right standing with God. Trust God in this, and you are well on your way to avoiding the attitude problem that lays at the root of all our sinful grumbling in life.

Sometimes, in love, God has to discipline us to bring us back to the basics of faith. Let God’s discipline bring you back to God in repentance. Let it serve as a call back to the basics. Whatever trials you may be facing right now, look up to Jesus on the cross, and live. Put all your trust in him. And he who provides you with forgiveness and eternal life, will also look after your every other need. “Commit thy way unto the Lord, trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass!” Amen.