Five verses in the book of Numbers tell a story I’ve always found puzzling. Snakes? Really? I spent an hour trying to explain it in a typical, straightforward way. But in a dream, it makes sense somehow…
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I’m a skeptical professor up late preparing for a debate about faith. I’m reading the Gospels, pondering the crazy tale of a preacher who seems willing to die on a cross though he clearly does not deserve it. But I’m so sleepy. I put my head down and I’m in the desert, surrounded by this caravan of millions, this exodus of fathers, mothers, children, livestock, wagons, soldiers, trumpets, and the dust from a million sandaled feet… Suddenly everyone is screaming: Snakes! Snakes!
I jump on the back of a donkey and grab a couple kids to hold so no one will force me off… Men and women are dropping dead around me. Then someone screams to look to Moses and the bronze serpent on a pole. And I watch, and everyone who looks at the pole survives. And those who refuse to look at the pole die from their snakebites. And I realize that’s me—I’m one of those people who won’t look at the pole. What’s some statue gonna do, right? I believe in science!
But I see people falling dead everywhere, and I’m overcome. I grab the shoulder of a man near me: “Look up, man! Look at the snake! Don’t you want to live?” He ignores my screams and dies, stubbornly resisting his only way of escape. In my distraction, I slip off the donkey and I’m bit! My leg is on fire! I look for the bronze pole, but I can’t see it anywhere. I climb up on the animal for a better look. “God, don’t let me die! Where is the pole?”
And then I see it—only now the pole is a Cross. And Jesus is on the cross. And he looks at me, and I realize He is up there for ME. He wants to take my curse! “But I don’t want that!” I scream. “I don’t want charity! I’ll take care of myself—just tell me what to do!”
I can no longer feel my legs. My fever is suddenly so high, my eyes are blurring and everything is colorless and brown. I’m about to pass out. I don’t want to die! I look up again. I try not to, but I can’t help it! I look to Jesus and He sees me and looks at me and I see Him looking at me, and something happens, some transaction happens between us and the pain goes away and I feel better. No, the pain does not go away, exactly—the pain goes to HIM. He takes my curse and I am healed.
I wake up and I’m not alone. Someone is with me, and I know Who it is, and I’ll never be alone again. And I don’t know what all this means, but I realize I’m no longer a skeptic. Jesus is alive and He took my curse at the cross when I looked to Him for healing.
“Whenever someone was bitten and he looked at the bronze snake, he recovered” Numbers 21:9.
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Household Words: 