...keep our hearts on the Lord...

14 And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in him may have eternal life”  John 3:14,15.

Here John is referring to a remarkable story in Numbers 21:4-9, wherein God became angry with the Jews who, while traveling through the wilderness in the desert, murmured and complained to Moses and actually regretted that they ever left slavery in Egypt!   So God sent them a plague of fiery and quite deadly serpents to punish them.  When the people repented and cried out to God for mercy God told Moses to make an image of a serpent and held it aloft in the middle of Israel’s camp, and whoever looked at the serpent would be healed of the poisonous snake bites!

This story became an inspiration for faith to the Israelites.  It was not the serpent who gave them back their life, it was God who healed them!   

There is no healing power in the serpent!   So long as the Israelites kept their eyes and their hearts focused on God, so long as they ceased their bellyaching about the unfairness in life, God would heal them. 

John retold this story as a kind of parable about Jesus.  It is an obvious reference to Jesus being lifted up on the cross, and as John is also so keen to point out, it is also a story of Jesus being lifted up into glory when He ascended into heaven.  This parable is used to point to the cross: “Jesus said, ‘When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will realize that I am He, and that I do nothing on my own, but I speak these things as the Father instructed Me’”  John 8:28;  Jesus said, “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself” John 12:32.    And John remembers too that this is also a reference to the Ascension of Jesus: “32 This Jesus God raised up, and of that all of us are witnesses. 33 Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you both see and hear”  Acts 2:33;  “31 God exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Savior that he might give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. 32 And we are witnesses to these things, and so is the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey him”   Acts 5:31, 32;   “Therefore God also highly exalted Him and gave Him the name that is above every name”  Philippians 2:9.   So for John this is a reference to the two times Jesus is “lifted up” — and the two are forever intertwined, for life teaches us all that there is pain with gain, trials with acquittals, and the cross with the crown.

So dear friends, take time today in prayer to reflect on these verses on John 3: 14-15, for in this little parable is a great truth in life.  Jesus said in Matthew 6:24: “If anyone wants to follow after Me, let them deny themself, take up their cross, and follow Me.”   We cannot whine, or worst still, turn away from God whenever we experience deep suffering and pain.  Life is not fair, and yet we have no one to blame for this truth except ourselves.

Just as Jesus suffered and died in order to rise from the dead, so must we

go through dark days in order to follow Christ.   May we keep our eyes on the Lord in prayer.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me a sinner.