Look upon the snake and you shall live!

In Sunday School today, the Bible story was that of Moses raising the snake on the pole to heal those bitten by the poisonous vipers.




God had led His chosen people out of slavery. God had parted the sea to enable them to escape Pharaoh's clutches on dry land; and not only that, He closed the sea over their pursuers!

They complain when Moses is up on the mountain speaking with God himself, that he is up there too long and they abandon the One True God who is in their midst continually in the cloud of smoke by day and the cloud of fire by night. That cloud was upon the mountain right in front of them..but in their impatience they decide that they should fashion a golden calf and worship it and praise it for rescuing them.


Continuing on in their travels, they complained unto Moses over their lack of food and water. God miraculously provides manna, quail and water for all the days of their journey, their 40 year journey...not unlike the Bread of heaven He sent to us, to save us!


Imagine that amidst all of these miracles they continue to complain. God lets His wrath pour out upon them, sending poisonous snakes to bite and kill them. They deserved His punishment! They quickly repented of their sin, begging Moses to speak to God on their behalf. Moses did, and God answered their prayer. He had Moses fashion a golden snake upon a pole. All the people had to do was look upon the snake and God would immediately heal them.

There are several notable things in this story.

The obvious one..that Jesus, too, was put upon a pole to save God's people for a fatal wound: Sin.


And then we note the ungrateful attitude of God's people. They had miracle after miracle before their eyes, and yet they are repeatedly unfaithful!! It is an undeserved blessing that God remains ever faithful to His rebellious people. (Hosea repeats this theme as well, referring to God's unfaithful people as a harlot)

Then there is the rescuing. It never says in the story that God took the snakes away. He allowed His people to continue to be bitten because of their sin. They prayed for help and God sent the "medicine" to fix the deadly sickness brought by the snakes. (And indeed that snake in the Garden!)

Isn't it the same for us? We continually pray for God to rescue us from this sin-filled world. He does not take us out of it. He does, however, send us the cure..raised on a pole on our behalf. He, in His mercy provides the cure! He provides it over and over again! His Word declares us renewed by the washing of water and the Word. He strengthens us to face another day trusting in His provision by the gift of His own Body and Blood. And yet, despite these miraculous Gifts, we, too, forget Him, forget what He has done and what He can do.

These pictures are from the Ecclesiastical Art CD by Ed Rojas.
It can be purchased from HigherThings.org

The Great Awakening

When I was a young teen, I thought my emotional experiences in worship situations were the Holy Spirit speaking to me. That is what my college age Lutheran Camp Counselors told me and I believed them completely! Thus began my emotional walk with God - straight to Lutheran College where I could have a mountaintop experience every day!!! What could be better?

(Why didn't I remember Jesus telling his disciples at Transfiguration that it could not be so? But that He would be with them anyway?)

Fast forward to the years I was teaching my little girls a song from our history curriculum...that included the Great Awakening as a significant movement in America's historical timeline. Huh? What was the Great Awakening? What was the Second Great Awakening? I had no idea.



From http://www.wfu.edu/~matthetl/perspectives/four.html:

"The Awakening reinterpreted the meaning of the covenant between God and his creature. In Puritan theology the focus was on what God has done for us. In the aftermath of the Awakening, the new emphasis was on what man can do in response to God's great gift. The responsibility for salvation is not God's but man's."

From http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/tserve/eighteen/ekeyinfo/grawaken.htm:

"What historians call “the first Great Awakening” can best be described as a revitalization of religious piety that swept through the American colonies between the 1730s and the 1770s. That revival was part of a much broader movement, an evangelical upsurge taking place simultaneously on the other side of the Atlantic, most notably in England, Scotland, and Germany. In all these Protestant cultures during the middle decades of the eighteenth century, a new Age of Faith rose to counter the currents of the Age of Enlightenment, to reaffirm the view that being truly religious meant trusting the heart rather than the head, prizing feeling more than thinking, and relying on biblical revelation rather than human reason."

hmmm. Valuing emotional experiences over God's Word.....uh oh.

Long story short, when we get to the part in the history song that goes "...the first Great Awakening..." I added this comment: "..The first Great Awakening-BOO!" so the kids would know it was NOT the good thing that many Christians of that time unfortunately, believed. AND the song was written by folks who to this day believe it was a wonderful blessing to God's people.