John 3:14-15 “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.”
I hate snakes. They creep me out. I remember in college a good friend and fellow member of our baseball team, Terry, had the afternoon off. He approached me about going with him to do something that I had never done before in my life. Hunt for water moccasins. That’s right, purposely hunt for snakes. I get the creeps just thinking about it.
Not far from where we lived was a lake that had an area that was being taken over by water moccasins. The lake rangers allowed hunting of these pests as long as it didn’t involve a gun or explosives and you had a proper permit. Terry was a master marksman with a bow and arrow, so to practice he would at times go out and try to help the cause by taking out a few moccasins in his spare time. I reluctantly agreed to go.
After putting on two pairs of denim jeans, big thick rubber boots, a couple thick long sleeve shirts, and three or four pairs of gloves, I was ready. I didn’t care if it was spring and 85 degrees outside, I was ready.
Terry was kind enough to allow me to use one of his high powered bows and some special arrows just for this occasion. I saw more water moccasins in that one day than I ever hope to see in the rest of my life. They were in trees, behind rocks, in the bushes, and some even laying in the middle of the trail we were walking on. Terry would let me take nine or ten shots at a snake before he would take it out with one shot. I think I had one kill all day. It was creepy but memorable.
On the flip side of that, Terry often wrestled with his relationship with God. During times like this we would have a chance to get into some very real conversations about this. How could he trust a God that allowed dying babies, good innocent people getting killed by drunk drivers, and let bad things happen to those that followed God and trusted in Him. Real questions most struggle with at some point in their walk. One thing that I appreciated about Terry was that his questions were real and he was truly seeking the truth.
Many times people seek and expect that type of a relationship with God. A type of good luck charm. I know early on in my spiritual journey, my thoughts centered around “If I pray, fast, read the Bible daily, etc. I’ll have a strong relationship with God and good things will happen to me.” How disappointing to realize this is not the case.
I find the verse that John points out here to be an interesting one. He ties it not only to Jesus but the reality of our relationship with him using a very scary and serious situation found in the Old Testament. John references a moment in Moses life in Numbers 21:1 – 14. The people were rebelling and a curse of snakes had come and were biting and killing people. As we are told, the people repented and God provided Moses a bronze snake for the people to focus on. If they were bitten, all they needed to do was focus on the bronze snake and they would survive.
You might be thinking, “Wait a minute, did you get that story right! They repented and when they were bitten they had to focus on the bronze snake! Didn’t God take the snakes away?”
No the snakes remained. According to John, the implication he makes here is we will have struggles in our lives. They will not go away. But when they do occur, we are not alone. No, having a relationship with Jesus doesn’t mean the snakes in our lives will go away. But we do have someone on our behalf that can throw us the life preserver. Someone that can help take the sting away. Someone that will help us get through what ever we are facing. Someone that is there for us helping us to know that in the end we will survive.
Man has free choice. We face consequences in our lives that come as a result of those choices. At times that seems a bit unfair. Our saving grace is that we are not alone. If we keep our focus, no matter what our snakes may be, we will prevail.
Snakes still creep me out.