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Lifted Up
Where We Are
We enter the fifth week of Lent, and the readings intensify sharply as the cross draws nearer. The evangelist John continues to narrate the mounting confrontation in Jerusalem, where Jesus makes claims that his opponents find increasingly intolerable. Today he connects himself to the bronze serpent that Moses lifted in the desert, an ancient symbol of healing that foreshadows the cross itself. The first reading from Numbers provides the original story of that strange and paradoxical remedy.
The Word
In the desert, the Israelites grumbled against God and Moses. Venomous serpents came among them, and many died. God told Moses to make a bronze serpent and mount it on a pole: anyone bitten who looked at it would live. It was a paradox of healing, gazing at an image of the very thing that was killing them. Jesus applies this to himself in The Temple: "When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will realize that I AM." The lifting up refers simultaneously to the cross and to his exaltation. In John's theology, the cross is not defeat but enthronement.
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Reflect
The connection between the bronze serpent and Christ crucified is one of the richest typologies in all of Scripture. In the desert, the people were dying from snakebites, the direct consequence of their rebellion against God. The cure was not to remove the serpents but to look at an image of the serpent raised on a pole. It is deeply counterintuitive: you are healed by gazing at a representation of the very thing that is killing you.
The cross works by the same paradoxical logic. Sin is destroying us. Christ takes on the likeness of our sin, is "lifted up" on the cross, and all who look to him with faith are healed. The cure is not the removal of suffering but its transformation through trust in the one who suffers with us.
"I AM" is the divine name revealed to Moses at the burning bush. When Jesus uses it in The Temple, his audience understands exactly what he is claiming, and they reach for stones. The claim is absolute: the one who will be lifted up in apparent defeat is the same God who spoke from the fire on Mount Sinai. To lift your eyes to the cross is to look into the face of God.
Living It
Where in your life are you looking away from the cross instead of toward it? We often want God to remove our pain rather than transform it. The Israelites wanted the serpents gone; God told them to look at a bronze image of the serpent instead. What suffering or struggle have you been asking God to take away, when perhaps he is asking you to look at it honestly, to gaze at the cross and find healing not through escape but through trust? Today, bring one wound to prayer and simply look at the crucified Christ. Let his gaze meet yours.
Prayer
Lord Jesus, lifted up on the cross for our healing, we turn our eyes to you today. Where we have looked away in fear or frustration, help us to look again with faith. As the Israelites found life by gazing at what wounded them, may we find life by gazing at your wounds. Amen.
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