Two Rivers
Pastoral Charge
Sunday July 27, 2025
Scripture: Numbers 21:4-9
So in this year’s summer sermon series of “Wait?! What?! That’s in the
bible???” when we’re looking at some of the lesser-known, quirkier stories in
the bible, this week’s story falls under the category of just plain weird.
Unlike some of the other stories we’re going to be reading this summer, this
story from the book of Numbers is actually found in the lectionary that we
follow. In chapter 3 of John’s gospel,
Jesus refers to Moses lifting up the bronze serpent, and so on the 4th Sunday in Lent in year B, when we read chapter 3 of John’s gospel, this story is
paired with it as the Old Testament reading.
But when I was reading and listening to some different commentaries on
this reading, all of the commentators said some form of, “But none of you are
going to actually be preaching on this story from Numbers, because it’s paired
with the much more important, ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only
son’ reading.”
So this week is a bit of me pushing back on those commentators, and I am
actually preaching on the story of the snakes in Numbers.
Like I said, it’s a weird story. When I
read it, two big questions or concerns jump off the page at me. Number 1:
Surely God, a God who is love, didn’t actually send a bunch of venomous
snakes to kill the people. And Number
2: What’s with healing people by having
them look at a bronze snake on a pole?
This is sounding almost like magic or idolatry, and it wasn’t too long
ago on their journey through the wilderness that the people got in a lot of
trouble for worshipping a golden calf.
So those are my two concerns, and hopefully by the end of today I’ll have come
up with some sort of satisfactory answer to both of them!
This story takes place in the middle of the Sinai wilderness. If you remember, the Ancient Israelite people
had been slaves in Egypt; Moses went to the Pharoah and demanded, “Let my
people go!”; eventually the people were able to escape and Moses parted the
waters of the Red Sea so that the people could cross over to safety; and then
they spent 40 years wandering through the desert wilderness before they would
be able to cross over the Jordan River into the land that had been promised to
them and to their ancestors.
We don’t have an explicit time stamp on this story that we heard today, but
it’s fair to say that they are getting close to the end of their 40 years of
wandering in the wilderness. They are
still on the move, but in just a couple more chapters, Moses is going to climb
to the top of a hill and he will be able to see the promised land. Then Moses is going to spend almost all of
the book of Deuteronomy summarizing the journey so far and repeating God’s law
to the people, then Moses is going to die and Joshua will lead the people
across the Jordan River.
So from our perspective, because we can read ahead, we know that the journey of
the Ancient Israelites is almost over.
We know that it is not long before they will be crossing into a land
flowing with milk and honey. But from
their perspective, they would have had no idea how close to the end they
were. From their perspective, they have
been traveling through a desert wilderness for 40 years, and they have no way
of knowing that the journey isn’t going to last another 40 years.
But their complaining has been almost continual, and poor Moses (and poor God)
have been listening to their continual grumbling for almost 40 years now. Right away – as soon as they had crossed the
Red Sea to leave Egypt, and as soon as they had sung a song of praise to God
for delivering them from slavery – they had barely had time to put their drums
and their stringed instruments away when the complaints began. Why have you brought us out here into the
desert to die? Why can’t we go back to
be slaves in Egypt again, because even though we were slaves, at least we had
cucumbers and melons to eat, and fresh water to drink?
If you read through Exodus and Leviticus and Numbers, it is a continual litany
of complaint. The people complain to
Moses, Moses passes on their complaint to God, and God responds. God provides manna for them to eat. God tells Moses to strike a rock with his
staff and fresh water flows from it. God
causes flocks of quail to land on their campsite so they can have fresh meat.
And still the people complain. 40 years
later and we hear them still grumbling:
“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 that we do have.”
And then a… I don’t know the right word for a collective of snakes… a herd of
snakes? a flock of snakes? appears, and bite the people, and the people
start dying.
Which brings me to the first of my questions.
Do I believe that God actually sent the snakes to kill the people? To that, I have to say no. I don’t think that a loving God, who has been
caring for the people through 40 years of desert wandering, would all of a
sudden send something to kill them. If
you read the passage carefully, we don’t have God telling Moses, “Let me send a
bunch of venomous snakes.” Instead, we
have the narrator’s observation – then the Lord sent poisonous serpents among
the people.
If we consider that the people had been complaining to God and blaming God for
the hardships that they had been facing in the desert, when a bunch of deadly
animals show up, it makes sense that they would continue to blame God. And so I see the snakes coming from God as
the people’s interpretation of what is happening rather than what
God is actually doing.
Because isn’t it a temptation that most of us face, that when something bad
happens in our lives, we want to blame God?
God – why did you take my loved one from me? Why didn’t you stop that fire from destroying
my house? Why didn’t you (insert complaint here)?
In the story we read today, we hear from God for the first time when God gives
Moses instructions for how to cure the people – make a bronze snake, and put it
on a pole, and anyone who looks at the snake will live. Even if God didn’t send the danger, God
offers a path to safety. Bad things
happen in our lives – everything doesn’t always happen for a reason, sometimes
stuff just happens – but God is always there to accompany us through the bad
things.
But what’s with the cure that God offers?
Instead of herding the snakes out of the camp, instead of telling Moses
to strike the rock with his staff so that anti-venom will pour out of it,
instead God instructs Moses to cast a bronze snake, and raise it up on a pole
above the people, and when the people look at the snake they will recover. Really?
Just looking at a bronze snake will cure snakebites? First of all, this is bizarre; second of all,
it smacks of woo-woo magic rather than of God; and third of all, how is looking
at a bronze snake different than worshipping a golden calf?
I think what is important here is intent.
The bronze snake was a sign. The
people weren’t supposed to see the snake and worship it – they were supposed to
look at the snake and then look past the snake to see God’s presence. The bronze snake is a sign, pointing towards
God.
Because I don’t think that the thing that the Ancient Israelites needed to be
cured from was snakebite, because that wasn’t what was really ailing them. The thing that they needed to be cured from
was forgetting about God. And by looking
at a bronze snake, they could be reminded that God was still with them, guiding
them, protecting them, and feeding them.
The cure wasn’t about the snake itself, it was about what the snake
pointed to. And just like we don’t
worship our bibles or our crosses or our candles, they can all help us to
remember that God is with us. Always and
forever.
Last Tuesday at our movie night, we watched the animated movie Flow,
which begins when a little grey cat has its life turned upside down when a
sudden flood takes away its home and familiar routines. The cat can never go back to the way that
things were – it can only move forward.
Even at the end of the movie, the cat hasn’t returned to its old home –
it has created a new home and a new chosen family instead. The Ancient Israelite people can never go back
to the way that things were – they can only go forward, trusting that something
new and something good awaits them at the end of their journey.
And we too can’t go back in time – we can’t go back to whatever golden age we
might hold in our imaginations. But we
can trust that, even when it feels like we are wandering through the
wilderness, God is still with us, and that the Promised Land that lies ahead of
us, in whatever form that promised land might take, is miles better than all of
the cucumbers and melons that the Egypt of our imagination might hold. And if we forget that God is with us, well,
maybe we won’t want a bronze snake on a pole, but we can use the things we need
to use to remind us of God’s presence – gathering together to worship, prayer,
singing, candles, crosses, incense.
We can never go back to the way that things were, but the future ahead of us is
going to be even better than what we have left behind, knowing that God is with
us on the journey, and God will be with us at the destination. Amen
I promised that I wouldn’t bring any snakes
(real or toy)
to church this week.
I hope that you will forgive me for this photograph
of a sculpture of the Bronze Serpent,
made by Giovanni Fantoni and found outside
the Memorial Church of Moses on Mount Nebo, Jordan.
