Today's Daily Lesson comes from Numbers chapter 21 verses 4 through 9:
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. 5The 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.’ 6Then the Lord sent poisonous serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many Israelites died. 7The 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. 8And 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.’ 9So 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.
Behold a great mystery.
The serpent is a dreaded thing. Anytime I read this story, I think of that scene in Indiana Jones' Raiders of the Lost Ark, when Indiana is throne into the pit of vipers hidden in the desert floor. "I hate snakes," he says. We all do.
But in the snake is not only terror but also salvation. And in staring at the snake, that most dreaded of all creation, the people find their healing. Do not ask me how this works! It is mystery.
It is also metaphor and symbol. That which scares the hell out of us, we have to face. Thus the ancient Caduceus -- two snakes wrapped around a pole -- is the symbol for the medical profession. That which terrifies us -- our illness -- must be faced in order that it be healed.
Today is Holy Cross Day. The Cross was a terrifying symbol of oppression, social control, and murder. It was the lynching tree of its time. It was the symbol of death for all living under the shadow of Rome.
Yet the Cross became in Christ a symbol of life and hope and God's victory over death and fear. This is the hope of our Gospel.
Many things may make us afraid right now. They may make us hide in holes like snakes in the ground. But our deepest fears must be faced. And in facing them we are saved.
I hate snakes. But it is down with the snakes where the secret to our salvation is found. It is in facing our fears that we find our courage.
And the mystery is beheld: all who dare to look and see are healed.
Ryon Price is Senior Pastor of Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas.
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