The Hope of John [A Story of Healing]…

October 29, 2007 | 12:00 AM

It started a long, long time ago. Long before the Word became flesh, God’s people were enslaved. The Hebrew people were forced into hard labor. They built cities and monuments for Egypt. The people prayed that God would rescue them from their captors. God answered. A Hebrew named Moses, raised by the Egyptian pharaoh, was chosen by God to rescue his chosen people. After many horrific events visited Egypt, God sent down the final plague. He told Moses to have each Hebrew family kill a lamb—the most spotless and perfect lamb they had. They were to spread the blood of the lamb around their doors and windows, and a plague would kill the firstborn of all who did not do as God said. The night of the Passover. The night of God’s deliverance is celebrated even today.

Pharaoh relented, and then chased Moses and the Hebrews into the wilderness, out of Egypt. God was faithful and saved his people. When they prepared to enter the land God promised them, they rebelled, saying that it was too dangerous. God sent them back into the wilderness again, for forty years. During that time the Lord continuously provided for their every need. But they lacked faith. Let’s look at Numbers 21:4-9.

From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom. And the people became impatient on the way. And the 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 loathe this worthless food.”  Then the LORD sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died. And the people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned, for we have spoken against the LORD and against you. Pray to the LORD, that he take away the serpents from us.” So Moses prayed for the people. And the LORD said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live.” So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live.  (-Numbers 21:4-9, ESV)

The people rebelled from God, but later repented. This was the last major grumbling of the Hebrew people before they finally entered their Promised Land under Joshua’s guidance.

In this story we see the people lose faith in their Protector and Provider, but we also see God’s salvation. Their punishment was to be stricken by snakes. God’s solution was for Moses to make a bronze or copper serpent and raise it up so that those who were bitten could see it. Miraculously, when they gazed upon it, they were healed. The rabbis would say that the serpent wasn’t the healing factor. It wasn’t the bronze serpent that saved and healed God’s wounded people. It was the faith of the wounded that saved them. Their belief that God would do as he said—that was the healing factor. In fact, several hundred years after these events, King Hezekiah destroyed the very same bronze serpent because many were offering sacrifices to it, not to God. It is, unquestionably, the Hebrews’ faith in God that saved them from their otherwise certain death. Salvation does not come from man. This story parallels so clearly the story of Jesus, that Jesus decides to point it out. John records Jesus’ explanation in 3:10-17, which we’ll look at next.

Posted in Christianity, Hope of John Series, Life, New Orleans, Theology