Tuesday of Fifth Week in Lent, March 27,2007

Scripture: Numbers 21:4-9. Psalm 102:2-3,16-18,19-21. John 8:21-30.
Lectionary # 253:

Looking up at the bronze serpent in obedience to God brings about healing
for those who were bitten by the fiery serpents in the desert. The
Israelites are coming to the end of their journey in the desert for forty
years, but they have complained incessantly for better food and drink.
They had become satiated with the manna and the quail. As a punishment God
sent the seraph serpents who bit them and only by obeying God and looking
at the bronze serpent raised on a pole were they saved, that is, healed.
Undoubtedly, there is much history and myth behind this event. The
Egyptians had the cobra as a symbol of kingship and divinity; Pharao wore
an image of it on his forehead. Then later in the eight century before the
common era, Hezekiah, the holy king of Judah destroyed all images of gods
which were made in the form of a snake. Rabbinic interpretation had
difficulty with this passage of magical cures so they said that those
gazing upon the serpent were really directing their eyes toward the
heavenly Father and thereby they were saved and cured. Jesus, too, uses
this event in today's Gospel when he speaks of his being lifted up on the
instrument of his death--the pole of the cross. Three times Jesus speaks
of his being lifted up in John's Gospel. First in chapter 3:14: "And just
as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be
lifted up." Then in our reading of chapter 8:28 we see the second
reference: "When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will realize that I
AM, and that I do nothing on my own, but I say only what the Father taught
me." The final use of the expression occurs in chapter 12:32 just before
Jesus will gather with his disciples to celebrate the final Passover meal
with his disciples. This passage of chapter 12 is as follows: "And when I
am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to myself. He said this
indicating the kind of death he would die." The other Gospels are more
direct in recalling the three predictions of his death. Thus we are being
prepared for the last days of Jesus' life in our liturgical readings and
reflections upon them. We are encouraged to be persistent in our Lenten
prayer and selfgiving. Today is the acceptable time. Now is the right
hour to enter into the Paschal Mysteries: Jesus suffering, death, and
resurrection. Amen.