Jesus said to Nicodemus:
“Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert,
so must the Son of Man be lifted up,
so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.”
For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son,
so that everyone who believes in him might not perish
but might have eternal life.
For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world,
but that the world might be saved through him.
John 3:14-17, from our Sunday Gospel reading, year B
Sin comes back to bite us.
That is what happened to the Israelites in the desert as they approached their entrance into the promised land. Rescued from slavery by the One God who loves them, led through many dangers and difficulties through years in the desert, gifted by His continued presence and His guidance through the years—they rebel. They reject “this wretched food,” that has sustained them through all their struggles. The “wretched food” was the manna from heaven.
It was the manna from heaven that was keeping them alive! To refuse to eat it was to die. Yet they could not see that. The lesson had to be made even clearer for them to realize what they were doing. So God “personified” their attempt at suicide into a plague of seraph serpents that began to strike and kill some of them. While they were putting two and two together, God instructed Moses to make a bronze replica of a seraph serpent and “lift it up” on a pole for them to gaze at. Now they see what they did. Now they realize their sinfulness, their death-dealing refusal and rebellion. Now they understand they had been siding with the ancient serpent in the Garden. Now they repent. With repentance comes recovery and the end of the deadly plague.
Jesus is our manna in the desert of troubles we live in throughout our lives. He tells Nicodemus that he (who knows no sin) will become the sign of our sin, “lifted up” and displayed before our eyes—“crucifixed”—so we may understand what we have rejected. Then we may come to repentance. Then the bread of heaven offers himself as food for wretches such as me and you. He invites us to bow before his cross and receive him and “be saved through him.” There is no pain, no humiliation he will not go through in order to give each of us life-unto-Life.
For further reflection: Since we live in Time–that is, duration–everything both “is” and “is becoming” all at once. We are both “saved” and “being saved.” That is why every Mass begins with a penitential rite. He is with me and WE (He and I) are not where we are going to be yet.