Lectionary Texts for the Fourth Sunday in Lent
In a recent discussion with a friend of mine who's very familiar with the lectionary, he explained that one of the things he doesn't like about the lectionary is its tendency to undermine the mystery and meaning of stories in the Hebrew scriptures by making New Testament connections that lead to overly simplistic interpretations of the older texts. I think there is certainly value in making these connections toward understanding the arc of the bilibcal narrative, but he's right in that we don't often live fully into earlier texts because there's a subtle impression that the gospels trump the Hebrew scriptures. Something worth considering, even as I proceed to display my own inability to let this Sunday's Numbers text "stand on its own."
I was immediately fascinated by the Numbers text and so I'd like to look at the story more closely. If Lent is intended to follow Jesus' model of spending forty days in the desert of suffering and self-examination, then a story that comes out of Israel's time in the desert should have something to offer us in this context.
The Israelites have come to view their situation not as a journey toward promise full of the Lord's providence, but a burdensome, compulsory, never-ending journey on which they have no food or water...or, at least, they don't have anything they like to eat. Just when they think it can't get any worse, poisonous snakes invade their camp and start killing them off.
I don't like to think of God as killing people off just as a lesson against self-pity. And in fact I can't reconcile the image of a mysterious, loving, just, wise God with one who says, "Oh, yeah, you think you're in a bad situation now--well, take this!" It seems awfully childish, but it resonates with C.S. Lewis' general contention that we don't in fact know if death is really a bad thing. We objectify death as a bad thing to be feared; however, we also have the interpretation that death is merely a transformation into our final state. Anyway, this is sort of a tangent to say that I don't think this story is about God playing a juvenile trick on the whining Israelites.
in response to the snakes, the Israelites cry out to God for mercy--or more specifically, they ask Moses to talk to God for them (junior high recess, anyone?). Moses concedes and God's response is so complex and perfect. Rather than take the snakes away from them entirely, God enables Moses to construct a means by which people who are bitten can live.
And here is where the text speaks to a larger issue than just that of self-pity. God is teaching us how to suffer--or rather, God seems to be teaching us where to look when we suffer. God doesn't take away all agents of suffering, but mercy lies in the reality that we are saved even in our suffering. And of course the bronze serpent is an image that is recalled later in linear time when God will literally show us the way through suffering to eternal life.
We shouldn't diminish the reality of suffering by saying that the serpent is ultimately alluding to what's really real on the other side of death. That interpretation leads to an escapist idolatry of death. Rather, I think the image of the serpent and its connection to the cross assure us that reality is both our suffering on this side of death and our release from suffering in eternal life. God is present to us in the desert and we discover this presence when we are watchful. What are the symbols that remind us this is true? We do well to be attentive, particularly when we feel as though the suffering has become too much to bear. God may be in the last place we expect to meet Him, as He was in the image of a fiery serpent.
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