The Scriptures
I reflected on today were so timely and relevant for our world today!
The
Israelites, out of frustration and exhaustion and impatience, complained
against God and Moses, and God punished them by sending saraph serpents who bit
the people, and many of them died. The
people repented, and asked Moses to intercede for them. And in response, God told Moses to fashion a
bronze serpent, mount it on a pole, “and if anyone who has
been bitten looks at it, he will recover.” (Numbers 21:4-9)
In John’s
Gospel, Jesus was once again trying to tell the people who He is. Finally, Jesus said to them, “When
you lift up the Son of Man, then you will realize that I AM, and that I do
nothing on my own, but I say only what the Father taught me.”
(John 8:21-30)
I daresay there’s
a lot of us in these crazy times who can identify with those ancient Israelites
who complained against God and Moses. Who
wouldn’t complain? We’ve had to deal
with the pandemic, the isolation, the despair, and the anxiety. Add to
that the racial violence, the unemployment for many, the anger at our
government officials, and the list goes on. But as always, for true believers, there’s
hope.
When we
reflect on Jesus on the Cross, we can believe that the love and sacrifice
demonstrated there come from God. We can
believe God really loves us that much! We can look at Jesus on the Cross, and, like
the Israelites in the desert bitten by the serpent, we, too, can “recover.”
We can
recover from despair and anxiety. We can
recover from anger and bitterness. We
can recover from prejudice and hatred and fear. We can recover from weariness and apathy and
complacency.
Jesus is I
AM for us. Jesus is God’s love revealed
to us. May we look upon Him and see His
love and sacrifice and be healed.
No comments:
Post a Comment