This week’s scripture, from Numbers 21, is WEIRD. I mean, lots of the Bible is weird, but this one is WEIRD. It’s so weird that no Christian preacher would be likely to ever preach it, if it weren’t for one, tiny, fame-making detail: Jesus himself references the story in John 3, in his conversation with Nicodemus about being born again. Yes, that’s the same John 3 that you see on billboards, bumper stickers and protest signs. Jesus says, “just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the son of man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him will have eternal life.”
So, this weird story about a copper snake on a pole is…relevant. Here we go:
The Israelites, who’ve been led out of slavery in Egypt, liberated from Pharoah’s violent regime, freed from lives of backbreaking labor, have been wandering in the desert for…a while. And they are not happy.
The Israelites repeatedly complain about their situation, mostly directing their ire at Moses, their leader whose dual identity as a Hebrew-Egyptian made their exodus possible. Moses mostly sighs and receives their grumbling, intercedes with God on their behalf, and patiently waits this wilderness wandering out.
But this time, the Israelites direct their complaint not only at Moses but at God, too. Danger! Danger, Will Robinson!
It’s not like the Israelites don’t have anything to complain about. They’ve been enslaved for generations, promised liberation, journeyed out of the only home they’ve ever known and had to camp out in the wilderness for an entire *generation.* Moses went up on a mountain and brought down an entirely new set of rules for how they are supposed to live together, and now they have to figure all that shit out while simultaneously living in tents, going vegan, and having absolutely no sense of what the future will bring.
[My college roommate once tried to go vegan the same week she committed to being a bike commuter and the transition did NOT go well. She returned to animal product consumption pretty quickly. Change isn’t easy.]
The Israelites’ situation is legitimately difficult. Complaint is warranted. And up til now, they’ve wisely directed their grumbling at Moses, the pastoral stand-in for God. Moses gets that this intermediary function is part of his call and, for the most part, understands that their caterwauling really has nothing to do with him. It’s not personal, and they all know it.
But this time, the Israelites aim their whining at GOD, which is not smart. It’s important to note, here, that the text clearly characterizes the Israelites’ complaint as WHINING. This is not the kind of speech that has the depth of lament, though the people surely could find and utilize that emotional register if they chose to be honest and vulnerable about their situation. But this? This is shrill, teenage bellyaching. Grousing. Kvetching.
“There’s no food!” they say, as they simultaneously pick up a piece of manna that God has provided EVERY DAY, DIRECTLY FROM HEAVEN. “We detest this miserable food!” they whine, immediately contradicting their initial complaint. It’s not, apparently, that there is no food, it’s that they don’t like what food there is.
The image here is so clearly a teenager hanging onto the open refrigerator door sighing and complaining about the lovingly, parentally-purchased and -prepared food, huffing that THERE’S NOTHING TO EAT IN THIS HOUSE! that it’s almost laughable. You know that attitude. I’ve been that attitude.
The Israelites are not grieving and lamenting; they are WHINING. And God has already told them - through Moses - that he’s had enough of it. She’s already assured them that this grumbling won’t get them anywhere. Literals. After a particularly nasty bit of complaint, God - through Moses - made it clear that the grumblers of this crowd won’t even make it to the Promised Land; it will only be their children who are finally admitted.
And so, this time, the twelfth time the Israelites commence their whining and the first time they direct it at God Herself, God sends poisonous serpents among them. The poisonous snakes bite people, and a lot of whiny Israelites die.
There’s a cautionary tale to share with your grumbling teenagers standing at the open fridge, parents.
And the people wise up, a little, and go to Moses, confess that they were wrong, and ask him to intervene, again, and make the snakes go away. Moses, long-suffering pastor that he is, agrees, and shares the request with God.
God doesn’t remove the snakes. Instead, he tells Moses to make a snake STATUE, affix it to a big pole, and tell the people that if they get bitten, they should look at this idol and they’ll be healed. It works. The snake-on-a-pole becomes a holy relic, carried through the wilderness, into the promised land, and installed in the temple for hundreds of years until King Hezekiah decides it’s too idol-like and distracting and has it destroyed.
See? WEIRD story.
Here’s my current takeaway: this God is not a God who erases suffering or consequence or hard things from our human lives. But this IS a God who is always and everywhere transforming the worst pain and most terrible losses into sites of healing. Isn’t it interesting that in order to be healed from a snake bite - incurred as a consequence of immature and unwise action - the people had to LOOK AT A STATUE OF A SNAKE? The healing was bound up inside the agent of pain itself.
I suspect that this is why Jesus name-checks this story in his conversation with Nicodemus, why he says that the son of man has to be lifted up in the same way. In order to be healed from our separation from God, maybe we have to LOOK AT OUR SEPARATION FROM GOD. To see what humans are capable of, to admit what we, ourselves, are capable of doing - even to the one who created us.
I wonder how this story would be different if the Israelites had the self-differentiation and emotional maturity to assess their situation from a different vantage point, to couch their conversation with God in terms of lament instead of complaint. What would have happened if they could have said, instead of “THIS FOOD YOU GAVE SUCKS AND WE ARE SO THIRSTY AND IT IS ALL YOUR FAULT!” something more along the lines of a Psalm, a question, a deep lament that admitted their fear and vulnerability and sense of being irreconcilably lost in the world?
I have no idea how that conversation would have gone, but I feel pretty safe in guessing that it wouldn’t have ended with poisonous snakes killing a bunch of people.
What would happen if we could approach God with honesty and vulnerability, willing to admit that we are complicit in the horrors we see around us, open enough to consider repentance a viable option, secure in God’s promise that home is not far away, that healing is on order, that even the very worst things that have happened to us, even the very worst parts of ourselves are, even now, being transformed into the very things that will save us?
What would happen?
Maybe…resurrection.
So now my lent will be spent contemplating Jesus on a stick. And I don't say that as a joke. What does it mean for me to be confronted by that image? And with it all the other images that are floating around me every day - pictures of war, politics, hunger, violence, separation, distrust, etc. The images I avoid because my heart hurts too much. Is it only by facing them and repenting that I will live?
Amen. What a solid idea.