Serpent Bites

With their patience worn out by the journey, the people complained against God and Moses, “Why have you brought us up from Egypt to die in this desert, where there is no food or water? We are disgusted with this wretched food!” In punishment the LORD sent among the people saraph serpents, which bit the people so that many of them died. 

Then the people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned in complaining against the LORD and you. Pray the LORD to take the serpents from us.” 

So Moses prayed for the people, and the LORD said to Moses, “Make a saraph and mount it on a pole, and if any who have been bitten look at it, they will live.” Moses accordingly made a bronze serpent and mounted it on a pole, and whenever anyone who had been bitten by a serpent looked at the bronze serpent, he lived.  (Numbers 21:4-9)  

Many of us have been “bitten” by physical and emotional hurt and pain.  These snakes in the grass are many and easy upon which to step.  We often don’t often look where we are going, and their teeth sink deep.  Our sins can be those teeth, and the venom of sin is our adversary causing hurt and pain.

There are snake-bite kits in the form of crucifixes we hold like Moses with his bronze serpent mounted on a pole.  We hold them up not for vampires but to ward off sins draining us of our life-blood.  

Jesus died on the cross for us.  He has taken the serpents from us.

Deacon David Pierce