Watch for snakes

In reflecting on the Scriptures today, I couldn’t help thinking how much the selections I chose show us as the Cranky People of God.  In Numbers, the Israelites were being led to safety and salvation, out of exile in Egypt and toward their homeland.  The journey was long and frustrating.  Their complaint?  “We are disgusted with this wretched food!” [Numbers 21:4-9]

Perhaps a little more gratitude would have been in order.

But the Numbers reading reveals a wonderful story of healing.  The people were being plagued by serpents who bit them, “and many of them died.”  When Moses prayed for the people, God told him make an image of a serpent and mount it on a pole.  Anyone who looked up at it would be healed.  All they had to do was gaze upon it, to trust in God and they’d be healed.

In John’s Gospel, the Pharisees challenged Jesus (again!) and misunderstood what He was saying.  He talked about salvation and about being saved from their sins.  He tells them, “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will realize that I AM...” [John 8:21-30].  For us to be saved, Jesus has to be lifted up, to be hung from a cross.  Like the Israelites, we must gaze up and believe if we’re to be saved.

It sounds so simple, to look on God and believe.  But we resist.  Our lives are about logic, not hearts and we can't afford to place too much trust in a God who might disappoint us.  We get cranky with the God who loves us too deeply, demanding that He rid our lives of difficult people and painful situations.

But it's there in the pain and the frustration of our lives that Jesus invites us to be healed.  He asks us to look up at Him and trust and to realize that He’s joining us in the pain of our lives.  He takes our place in the pain and gives us the healing love we need so desperately.  It’s in the depths of our pain that Jesus brings us the healing we need and the love we crave.  We have only to look on Him and trust.