Once there was a guy who was bitten by a poisonous snake. He knew he would perish because he had just witnessed others die from the bites of the deadly serpents. Then someone shouted, “If you look at the snake on the pole you will live!” Such a message seemed ludicrous, but the man did not argue. When he looked on the bronze serpent, the poison left his body and his health was restored.
Little did this man know that his story would point to an even greater miracle… for all have been bitten. “‘There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.’ ‘Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit.’ ‘The poison of vipers is on their lips.’” (Rom 3:10-13) All are dying! No one has hope… unless he hears the incredible call: “Look to Me! I have been lifted up for all men. Your sin has been put on Me. Believe in Me and you will live!”
When you drive by a hospital or doctor’s office and see the snake on the pole, the symbol of the medical profession called a “caduceus,” think about the miracle in the wilderness. I may be wrong, but if one day a nurse walked through our chemo room with such a staff saying, “If you look at the snake you will be healed,” we would all look. We all know we’re in need. Old or young, a doctor has told us we are dying because of something wrong in our bodies. None of us sits around debating whether or not there’s really a problem. I guarantee we’d all look if some frail old woman, without a hair on her head, jumped out of her chair and shouted, “It’s true! I’m well! Look at the snake and your cancer will be gone!”
So what’s the difference between these health crises and the spiritual crisis that faces each human being? Jesus gave the answer in a conversation with Nicodemus, but I think He wants us to be witnesses of truth. We are the healed sinners who should proclaim, “It’s true! I was lost, but He saved me! I was dead, but now I’m alive!” Only by God’s mercy does one realize he’s in such a hopeless condition. Only in humility can one receive this message of life. The One lifted up on the cross possesses all power to heal and to save. May He draw all men to Himself.
“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. For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.” John 3:14-21