Trinity 14
Dear friends in Christ. One of the rules or guides for understanding the Bible is that Scripture interprets Scripture. By that we mean that the difficult passages are interpreted/ understood in light of the easy/ clear passages; it means that one part of Scripture sheds light on another part of Scripture. We see that in our text. What are we to make of this scene: the people murmur against the Lord and His guidance/ dealings with them; as punishment and as a call to repent, showing them the seriousness of their sin, the Lord sends fiery serpents that by their bites end up killing many people; the people recognize their sin and ask Moses to intercede for them. So far really nothing extremely out of the ordinary—a familiar scene during the desert wanderings; but then comes the Lord’s command to Moses: "Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a pole; and it shall be that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, shall live".
Here is the intriguing, unusual part—Moses made a bronze snake, put in on the pole and when a person was bitten, if they looked on that pole, they would not die. What does that mean?
The devout Israelites had as the heart and core of their faith the promise God had given to Adam and Eve of the Messiah, the Savior, who would crush the head of the serpent/ the devil. It is not too much to expect that the Israelites would make the connection between the poisonous serpents and the Serpent-Crusher/ Messiah. Centuries later, Jesus makes it crystal clear, telling us the significance of that event: the snake on the pole was a foreshadowing of His work on the cross. “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” [John. 3.14]. As the serpent of brass was lifted up on a pole, so Christ, the Holy God, was lifted up on the cross and through His suffering and death has atoned for the sin of the world, all of which was laid on Him. Every sinner looking in faith on the crucified Christ will not perish but have everlasting life. Our text is a most glorious OT preaching/foreshadow of the crucifixion of Christ for the sins of the world.
But let us take it a step further and not only take great comfort that Scripture interprets Scripture—in the NT we have the full meaning/ significance of the event of our text pointed out to us—but, as we examine our text this morning, let us also get a glimpse into the working of Christ’s holy Sacraments, which He has entrusted to His Church; from our text, let us get a glimpse into the power and blessing of the sacraments.
1. The great hang-up/ stumbling block for so many with the sacraments is that they just look at the outward—the mere water of holy Baptism; the simple bread and wine of Holy Communion. How can simple water, bread and wine do such great things? And because they look just at the outward, they simply dismiss baptism as a mere “initiation” into the Church; they look at the Sacrament of Holy Communion as just something where the bread “represents” Jesus’ body and the wine “represents” Jesus’ blood; or, at best, Jesus is just spiritually present—but certainly not bodily. But as we look at our text, and applying what we discover there to the sacraments, we will see that the power of the sacraments is not in the outward, simple, water, bread and wine but the power of the sacraments is in the word and promise of God.
Then the Israelites journeyed from Mount Hor by the Way of the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; and the soul of the people became very discouraged on the way. We are toward the end of the 40 years of desert wanderings. As the Lord was leading them, they went around the nation of Edom—so they traveling further south away from the Promised Land; it looked like Egypt was closer than the Promised Land. They had already gone a long way and there was no end in sight. You know how frustrating it is to sit in traffic and not move—imagine the Israelites: they were a long time on the way, and not just “stuck in traffic” but seemingly going further away from their destination.
So what did the Israelites do? The same thing we would have done—complained: And the people spoke against God and against Moses: "Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and our soul loathes this worthless bread". This is not open rebellion but murmuring against divine guidance, as they spoke against both Moses and God: Why have you [that’s “you” plural] brought us up... The people, looking at their outward situation, saw only a hopeless existence—an endless desert journey ending with a miserable death.
This is what happens when a person looks merely at the outward, and despises/ rejects God’s leading; when a person does not look to God’s gracious word and promise and thinks He knows better than God.
So to remedy this rejection of God’s guidance and the forgetting His word and promise, what does the Lord do? He leads the people to trust His word and promise by giving them no alternative: So the LORD sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and many of the people of Israel died. So what happened next? The Israelites at their wits end, recognizing their sin, came to Moses, and said, "We have sinned, for we have spoken against the LORD and against you; pray to the LORD that He take away the serpents from us". The Lord brought it about so that they would recognize how truly helpless they were and that the only way out was to rely on Him and His word/ promise/ guidance. So Moses prayed for the people. Then the LORD said to Moses, "Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a pole; and it shall be that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, shall live". For their sin of rejecting His word and guidance, the Lord, in grace, was leading His people again to rely on His word.
So what does all this have to do with sacraments? Simply this: the power of the sacraments is not in the outward things—water, bread and wine; instead, the power of the sacraments is in God’s word and promise which He “connects” with the water, bread and wine—simple outward things.
In and of itself, what could a bronze snake on a pole do? Absolutely nothing! Rationally thinking about it, there is no anti-venom, no antidote, a person can get by looking at something from a distance. It’s not even like someone would have to touch it and maybe the bronze would have some curative properties—the person would just simply have to look at it when bitten and that person would live. What gave the bronze serpent on a pole its healing power? The word and promise of God! In and of itself, the bronze serpent could do nothing—but with the word and promise of God attached to it, it could preserve life.
Isn’t that exactly the same thing that we have with the sacraments? And that’s why this account is such a glorious picture of God’s work in the sacraments! In and of themselves a few drops of water, a small piece of bread and a sip of wine certainly have no spiritual value—just like in and of itself a bronze snake on a pole had no healing value. But the bronze snake on a pole then, and the water of holy baptism and the bread and wine of the Blessed Sacrament today are not just in and of themselves—God has given His word and promise in them; in them He has promised and gives us great spiritual blessing because of His word and promise!
This is precisely the way our Lord works—He makes sure that we recognize that it is His power and work that gives us the great blessings of forgiveness of sin, life and salvation in the sacrament. That’s why He uses such simple common things—a form of a snake on a pole; or today, water, bread and wine. Here we must be on guard so that we do not trip over and despise the sacraments because of these simple things. The people in Moses’ day in our text, if they despised that simple, common form to which God promised healing, what was the result? Today, if people despise the sacraments’ simple common elements to which God has added His word and promise, will the spiritual result be any different?
2. Our text: So the LORD sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and many of the people of Israel died. Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, "We have sinned, for we have spoken against the LORD and against you; pray to the LORD that He take away the serpents from us". Notice, the people were at their wits end. There was nothing they could do to save themselves. They were thrown back to trust the word and promise of God. And God tied His word and promise for healing to that bronze snake on a pole! The same thing applies to us—we cannot save ourselves from our sin, from our spiritual death—but God can and does! In grace He has tied His word and promise to grant us forgiveness of sins with these simple earthly elements of water, bread and wine.
Are we looking for the certainty of the forgiveness of our sin? Don’t we read it Scripture? Certainly! Don’t we hear the absolution pronounced upon us in church? Absolutely! But God is so rich in granting us forgiveness and wants His promise to be heard and received that He has tied it also to the water of Holy Baptism. Do we ever doubt our faith? Our forgiveness? Our being part of God’s holy family? –Then look back at Baptism. There see and hear that God has promised you all this and more. Baptism is the concrete, solid act outside of you that you can always point to as the time you were brought into God’s holy family and given every grace and blessing. Each day as you confess your sin, remember your baptism and receive once again the blessings God gave you there.
In the same way, as sin bothers you, as you seek the certainty of your forgiveness, run to the Sacrament of the Altar! There Christ has promised to meet you with the forgiveness of sin and to give you that forgiveness He won for you on the cross as with the bread and wine He gives you His very body that was cursed and condemned for your sin and that very blood that He offered to reconcile you to the Father. All this grace, all this forgiveness, all these heavenly blessings He gives you as He promised you with simple, common earthly water, bread and wine—just as He promised healing and life to the Israelites through the brass snake.
Remember our Lord Christ’s commentary on our text: “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life”. It wasn’t just any looking at the bronze snake on a pole that a bitten Israelite did—just a casual glance—but it was a looking with faith in God’s promise. It was taking God at His word that He would grant healing and life; a resting upon God’s promise. And remember what the Israelites said first: We have sinned. The same thing applies to us today. Our baptism will do us no good if we reject it; if we do not look to God’s blessings to us in it. The Holy Supper does us no good if we merely go through the motion but have no faith in Christ in our heart. Instead, by His Holy Law the Lord works in an acknowledgment of sin and a longing for deliverance; and by His holy promise in the word and sacrament He works in us a trust in His divinely appointed means.
Dear Christian, may the account of the Israelites and the bronze snake on a pole be a blessed picture for us of the power and blessing of the Sacraments. Although they are simple water, bread and wine—let us not despise that—they have great power and blessing. The power is in God’s word and promise He connects with these simple earthly elements; and the blessing is the true spiritual healing Christ won for us on the cross—the forgiveness, life and salvation— and now gives us in the water, bread and wine and which we receive in faith. INJ Amen.