B, Lent 4 - Numbers 21:4-9 "God Sent Snakes"

From Mount Hor the Israelites 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 From Mount Hor the Israelites 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)

Are we there yet? Are we there yet? This is so boring. I don't want to go. I wish I had stayed home! I wish I had different parents! [Hissing whispers, huffs and puffs, with plenty of sighs and attitude from the back seat of the car.]

I hate this food. I don't like peas! I don't like broccoli! Why do we have to always have vegetables? This food is so boring!

You've probably heard this type of reckoning and rhetoric before! Perhaps these words have even come from your mouth, at the table, or from the back seat.

Then there's the "so-called" advice from the back seat, or the left seat...

Why are you going this way? You'd get there a whole lot quicker if you went the other way!

When enough is enough, the situation is rectified by a sudden stopping of the car with the summons to get out and walk; or the invitation for the left hand driver to take the wheel on the right.

In the same manner, the food that seems so detestable is taken from the table and presented to the hound outside the house while the protestors are put to bed hungry.

No matter how much we might love our parents, they've all been the worst people in the world, at one time or another. Once it was thought being a kid was the worst thing in the world. Remember mum and dad rattling off the regular rant, "When you're an adult you can do whatever you please; you don't know how good you've really got it, and while you're under our roof you'll list to what we say and do it!"

But now being a parent pushed to the brink of frustration and beyond, one might find themselves saying the same things as did their mum and dad, realising how well we really did have it!

Experience has now taught me there's something much worse than being a frustrated child - being a frustrated parent of frustrated children!

When Moses prayed before the Lord, every parent can resinate with the frustration he must have felt as he led the children of God on the way from misery to happiness on the road from slavery to milk and honey freedom. We don't know what he said when he prayed to God, but I imagine he growled and muttered about their rudeness, being so impatient, and their faithlessness. After all God had brought them out of slavery and promised to deliver them into a life so much better than what they had.

In the same vein, it's not hard to imagine how God must get frustrated with us. Not all of us are parents, but we've all been children of parents and of those entrusted to lead us on behalf of parents. Some of us have long left the years of childhood; however, we're still the children of God.

We can cast aside the rose-coloured childhood view we like to have of ourselves and see that, like the Israelites, we as children were guilty of grumbling we knew a better way than the way lovingly laid out for us by our fathers and mothers.

It's no different with our Heavenly Father. In fact our age has little to do with Christian maturity. No matter how young or old we are we're all tempted to look at ourselves with rose-coloured glasses, guilty of exchanging Christ's way for our own way, believing we can do better, or adding just a bit to our Heavenly Father's way.

So God and Moses had packed up their Israelite family and were on a road trip. But not long into the trip the kids, the children of God, began to whinge and whine about the direction God was going and the food he handed out along the way.

Let's be clear here! Things weren't easy! They struggled in a harsh place, rocky wilderness and sandy soil was everywhere. It was tough! But they failed to trust God was with them, leading them, and loving them; hidden in the cloud, hidden the fire, and his hand hidden in the provisions of quail, manner, and water. They lived by sight and not by faith and so hardship in the desert made them snaky and they became impatient with Moses.

We might expect God to make things better; after all - God is a God of love. However, God works in ways we least expect, contrary to the way we think or like. He's God who comes in the midst of struggles and suffering looking for faith and trust. God is found hidden in the wilderness of fallen creation, and is not immediately obvious in the everyday hustle and bustle of life. In fact he uses all things, and even allows evil to continue in the short term, so we're taught to look to him for comfort and strength rather than the fallen world in which we like to hide and love to trust.

The Israelites' experience was uncomfortable, but so focused on the short-term superficialities of life, they wished for slavery in Egypt over against trusting God to deliver them into a land of milk and honey as he had promised. Their addiction to feel good, even for just a moment, led them to think they knew what was better for them.

But nothing could be further from the truth. And to use the well known verse from John 3:16... God so loved the Israelites that he sent snakes.

Now that's completely opposite to how we think; especially in this day and age! The Israelites took their eyes off God and craved deadly oppression under the old snake Pharaoh. And so God gave them a taste of death and sent snakes that bit them and they started to die.

This quickly turned them back to God when they realised they had received what they had wished for, with dire consequences to themselves and their quest for satisfaction. God knew if they got what they wanted; it would be no good for them in the long term. To return to Egypt, darkness, slavey, and oppression would not give them the feel good fix they were so desperately seeking.

So the choice became very simple: Uncontrollable death and carnage in Egypt without God, or God walking with them through the wilderness, giving them what they needed for the journey so they might be delivered into something much better.

Therefore, God didn't take the snakes away when Moses prayed to God. The harsh reality of the wilderness remained, but God gave the people a way out through trusting in him. God commanded Moses to mount a snake on a staff so that healing came to those who were bitten. And so God added to their wilderness hardship, but it made the Israelites realise just how merciful he is, and how much he wants to care for his people.

When we struggle with the sting of life and are tempted to growl at God. We do well to remember that God is a merciful God. Instead of abandoning us in the wilderness of our ways, he comes to us and calls us into his forgiveness.

Instead of desiring the darkness, allow God to shine the light of Christ into your place of darkness, so that as we struggle and stumble in the wilderness, we learn more and more to trust and walk in Christ through every valley darkened by the shadow of death.

So we hear in John chapter three...

This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.

Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God. (John 3:19-21)

Amen.