A snake, a pole, a cross

This is not the story we expected.

A snake, a pole, a cross

A few days ago I read John 3 in my ‘Bible in a Year’ plan – and having recently walked through Numbers again, I was struck by the connection Jesus makes. You might be too.

You’ll probably guess where I am going when I ask how you feel about snakes.

I once had a few encounters with the evil monsters whilst ministering with Reinhard Bonnke in Zimbabwe that felt safe enough, generally seeing the wretched things from a distance. On one occasion I was sitting next to a group of local church leaders eating lunch when a snake dropped out of a tree above them. Chaos ensued! Six men leapt up and scattered in different directions whilst staff just looked on in laughter! It was just a tree snake – nothing poisonous.

The nearest I got to trouble – looking into the face of death – was outside a pastor’s house, thinking I was safe I poked a spitting cobra through the mesh of a box with a stick, not knowing it could spit. I survived, but it rattled me (see what I did there!) when I found out. Some lessons only need learning once. Keep your distance. And don’t poke spitting cobra’s with sticks.

There’s something about snakes that makes your whole body tense, your pulse race. You don’t need to be taught to fear them. The fear is natural, instinctive.

So it’s strange, isn’t it, that Jesus – of all the images He could’ve chosen – says to Nicodemus the Rabbi, “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up.” Take a breath; astonishingly, not a lamb, a shepherd or a temple. A snake on a pole.

Back in Numbers 21, the people had reached breaking point. The long road through the wilderness, the unchanging manna, the silence of heaven – faith gave way to complaint. And this time, judgment came swiftly. God sent venomous serpents into the camp. They came by night, by day, slithering under blankets, striking at heels. Panic swept through hundreds of tents like a tsunami. People died. And in the sorrow, a cry erupted from the heart of the multitude to Moses: “We have sinned. Pray for us.”

But here’s the strange part. God responds to Moses, but doesn’t take the serpents away. He doesn’t silence their hiss, remove their poison glands or dull their fangs. Instead, He tells Moses to make a serpent out of bronze – something cold and lifeless – and lift it up on a pole. It would have taken time to forge a bronze serpent, meanwhile, people were dying… No special words. No ritual. Just this: if you’re bitten, look at it. You’ll live.

That’s it. Life for a look. Is that enough?

But that takes humility. You have to admit you’ve been bitten. You have to believe that healing comes from looking at the very thing that represents the curse. You don’t fight the snakes. You don’t earn your recovery. You look. Take a long, long look just to make sure. And look again, and again.

And Jesus says: That’s Me.

The Son of Man must be lifted up. Not raised in honour, but in agony. Not robed, but stripped. And like the bronze serpent, He became the image of the very thing killing us. Sin. Shame. Death. Not His, but ours. Hung where everyone could see. That’s the scandal of it. The Saviour looks like the problem. In a twist in the story, the place of death becomes the place of healing.

God didn’t remove the snakes slithering around the large camp, and He doesn’t always remove the pain, once bitten they knew it. Some of us are still feeling the bite in life – grief that lingers, wounds that won’t close, prayers that simply and seemingly go unanswered. But the offer still stands: look. Just look. Trust while bitten. Hope while hurting. It doesn’t make sense – but it’s how God works.

Despite our calamity and frenzied activity He doesn’t hardly explain. Why would He need to? He draws connections. Jesus joins the dots. What felt like silence in the past was preparation. A bronze serpent there, and then, now, here – something better. What seemed random then was provision. And every so often, if you stop long enough to trace it and join the dots, you realise God’s been weaving something into your story you couldn’t see at the time. All things work together for our good, not our punishment, or to teach us a lesson, or to make a point, but for our good.

He is always the answer. Even when the wretched snakes remain.

 

Sunday could be interesting …

If you are sitting, get ready to stand?

If you are sitting, get ready to stand

I’ve got a brilliant scripture to think about – maybe it’s way out of our culture, or the way we do things, but, simply put, the instruction is out there; so how do we respond to it? Before you reach for your bible let me tell you, this is one of those few verses that looks at you across the church building with a raise eyebrow, whilst you look back quizzingly, shrug, and move on.

“If a revelation is made to another sitting there, let the first be silent.” (1 Cor 14:30) Now that’s not what we usually expect to happen in a meeting, is it? It’s rare. Unusual. Almost unheard of. But the very fact it’s written into the text shows it’s not only possible, but anticipated. That ought to at least select the pause button. “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness” sort of thing…

Picture the scene. George is speaking. Not rambling. Not dominating. Just sharing what he believes God has given. A great word, going well so far, when suddenly Mary, seated, not moving, not signalling, receives a revelation. She comes up to share, and George stops. Not because his word was flawed, but because the Spirit, in that precise moment, has shifted His emphasis. It’s not disorder. It’s divine interruption.

But apply the brakes a little here. There are some strange and stunning details in this instruction from Apostle Paul to a Corinthian church that put the charisma in charismatic.

Let’s start with noticing that the person receiving the revelation is sitting. That’s odd. Scripture doesn’t waste words. Why mention the posture? There’s something almost scandalous about it. The Spirit bypasses the one speaking and speaks to the one seated. Not posturing. Not pressing. Just present. It says something, doesn’t it? I think it infers how God delights to move through those not trying to be seen. About how the Spirit isn’t impressed by energy or visibility. Stillness, attentiveness – He finds them. That alone should unsettle our assumptions.

Obviously, this instruction requires interruption. Let the first be silent. Not, wait until they’ve wrapped up their point. Not, finish your thought. It’s immediate. Yield. Now. It’s an instruction to release the moment without resentment. That’s not easy, when speaking from a place of conviction, you’ll know how hard it is to stop mid-flow, to just stop. Watch the politician being interviewed on television when a journalist challenges an answer – they have to finish their paragraph! That’s the weight of the moment, and in our scenario – God is now speaking elsewhere, and we are to respond. It’s not a matter of protocol. It’s a matter of obedience.

On top of that, what’s being given is revelation, not opinion. This isn’t someone sharing a well considered thought they’ve been mulling over for weeks (and there’s nothing wrong with that). This is something fresh out of the oven – freshly revealed and unveiled by the Spirit. And that’s critical. There’s a difference between wanting to speak and being given something to speak. Revelation isn’t on demand – it’s received. It disrupts. It carries its own weight. It’s not subject to our systems. It’s – ‘“Oh! Something just came to mind…”

This whole moment paints a picture of the Spirit’s real-time ‘moving and stirring.’ No one’s in control here except Him. He’s weaving the gathering as He wills, moving from voice to voice, emphasis to emphasis, moment to moment. Chord to chord, changing the beat of the drum. Not through agendas, but through availability. And that gives us room to pause: have we made room for such moments? Or have we filled every space, every silence, every moment?

It’s a challenge. It costs both parties something. The one who has made it to the microphone has to yield. The one currently receiving must speak. Neither is in control. Both risk obedience. And perhaps that’s why we don’t see this much. It demands humility, trust, and attentiveness. But, what might be possible if we did?

I think this will ‘sit on the shelf’ for many more years. I don’t have a practical answer, and certainly don’t know how we would go about facilitating this. But wouldn’t it be exciting to be in a meeting where “This is what I feel God has been saying to us this week” to that sudden, intense, “God is saying, Today, if you hear His voice …” (Yes, we’re still in Hebrews at Emmanuel Sheffield!)

The verse is simple and the implications vast. Perhaps we’ve not seen this because we’ve not expected it, but the text remains – unapologetic, unedited. A quiet call to a very different kind of gathering?