By Paul Keim, professor of Bible and religion
Scripture: Numbers 21:4-9 (NRSV)
There is much about the story of the bronze serpent that is discombobulating. The déserted people complain. God sends poisonous snakes to bite them. Many die. They appeal to Moses for relief. God provides instructions for the fashioning of a bronze serpent. Moses sets it on a pole. Whenever a person who has been bitten looks up at the cultic object, their life is preserved. Doesn’t sound very Christian. Doesn’t sound Jewish either.
And sure enough, it is reported in 2 Kings 18 that among the reforms of King Hezekiah, he broke the bronze serpent in pieces, it having become a fetish called Nehushtan. The people had been burning sacrifices to it as if it were a deity. Idolatry suppressed. Religion purified.
The writer of the Gospel of John, however, fashions a striking theological metaphor from this tradition. It becomes analogous to Jesus’ ascent to the cross, and further into heaven. Just as the bronze serpent had been lifted up to become an intermediary between God and the people to make healing possible, so too is the Son of Man to be lifted up (3:14). The juxtaposition is surprising, even provocative. Perhaps the sign of the cross evoked the image of the serpent on a pole (depictions of which appear in ancient iconography). More specifically, it is the act of lifting up, of making visible, its curative potential, that seems to stimulate the imagination.
In this grave season, let us look up and be healed.
Scripture: Numbers 21:4-9 (NRSV)
From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; but the people became impatient on the way. 5The 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 detest this miserable food.” 6Then the Lord sent poisonous serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many Israelites died. 7The people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned by speaking against the Lord and against you; pray to the Lord to take away the serpents from us.” So Moses prayed for the people. 8And the Lord said to Moses, “Make a poisonous serpent, and set it on a pole; and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live.” 9So Moses made a serpent of bronze, and put it upon a pole; and whenever a serpent bit someone, that person would look at the serpent of bronze and live.