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Snake on a stickTuesday, April 8, 2014
Numbers 21:4-5 Blame falls hardest on those I've first admired. The tail end of hero worship is inevitably disappointment, anger and sometimes even bitterness. The Israelites had done the same with God, and I need to learn from this. When God gives me blessings, I want to make him my hero. But then when the blessings disappear, I look up at him and am tempted to either blame him or blame myself. I complain or I grovel. In both cases I end up sick unto death, snake-bit, surrounded. Nowhere to rest, no ground of being, just obsessed with the dirt, standing in hissing, untrustworthy snakes. Slitherin all around, and me about to become one. Nasty. God won't stay put on my pedestal. But he knows there are no answers in the dirt. So in this very cool story from the desert Moses mounts a bronze serpent-on-a stick and holds it high against the sky. When the folks are bit bad and fixin' to die, God tells Moses to tell them to look up and live. What I see isn't pretty. I seem to see calamity, catastrophe, a snake ready to bite again. I want to look away. God says no. Look Up. In the shadows of the future, crosses carry crucifixions. Men die against the sky. Look up. There is Jesus, just one of many, made small as he comes to show the way to God. He invites me to become small with him, small as the eye of a needle. God is not who I think he is. He is so much more. Look up and live. Jesus, son of God, have mercy on me. Jesus, son of God, have mercy on me. Jesus, son of God, have mercy on me. |
In his teaching Sunday on taking responsibility, our pastor pointed out how the blame game began early, when Adam blamed God for making Eve and then Eve for tempting him, then Eve blamed the serpent for tempting her. And, Jeff said, "If the snake had opposable thumbs and fingers it would have pointed them too."