The other interesting debate we had last night was pertaining to a verse in John, where it says that just like the snake was lifted up in the desert, people must look to Jesus for everlasting life.  The snake in the desert reference is from Numbers, where the people of Israel are in the desert.  They get fed up with eating the same old food and start to moan.  A load of snakes come along and start to bite them and people begin to die.  They quickly realise that it is not their place to question God’s motives, as he is in the process of redeeming them and sending them to the promised land (therein lies an interesting metaphor for life on earth being tough sometimes but trusting in God as He leads us to heaven, the promised land).  They ask Moses to pray for the snakes to go away, which he duly does.  God instructs Moses to make a large bronze snake and to put it up on a pole.  All who have been bitten can look at the snake and be healed.

There were a few interesting issues here.  Why would God choose to use some kind of graven image for healing?  Why would he choose a snake, the symbol of evil?  Why didn’t he just take the snakes away?

The first point of note, is that there must be an action by the people to reverse their destiny.  They have been bitten and they have to look at the snake to be healed.  In the same way, John says you must look to Jesus (become a Christian) to be saved.  

The snake on a pole has a direct reference as well, to another verse in Galatians which states that “cursed is the one who hangs on a tree”.  Jesus, by dying on the cross took the curse away from us.  In the same way the snake, by being strung up on a pole took the curse of the people (it was old testament and Jesus hadn’t died yet so something else had to stand in place of the people).

The final point of note was that Moses had to lift the snake so that people could see it in order to be saved from sickness.  In the same way, if we know about Jesus, we shouldn’t hide him under a rug otherwise who will be able to see Him in order to be saved from death?  That’s a challenging one.

I might be talking double dutch but just wanted to share a few thoughts.