Sunday School, Snakes, and my Journal

A few weeks ago it was decided for me that I would no longer use Sunday mornings to have as my time alone to go for a run and take my time before meeting up with the rest of my family at church.  We had a transportation issue that took this beloved time away from me.  I love my church and I love Bible study.  I also enjoy running and cherish an empty home while getting ready for church.  So I was cornered into this situation where I had to leave my running shoes in the closet and join the rest of the family in the hustle and bustle of heading off to Sunday school early in the morning.

Oh how thankful I am for that corner I was forced into.  I started attending a class that is studying the Israelites during their time in the wilderness.  It so happens that another class I am taking is studying the same thing so it has been nice to glean some additional insight on the topic.

I bring my journal with me to classes or church to take notes in.  I posted the way I do my journal February 3, 2010 and I find I use it more than ever.  Taking it to classes and church has been great because often times I would lose the piece of paper I was taking notes on and likewise forget very valuable information.  Now I have a place I can look back to and others in my family can glean knowledge from the notes that I took.

Numbers 21:4-9 is where I found myself getting that light bulb above my head.  It is the story of when the Israelites are once again growing impatient and they begin to speak against God and Moses and complain about everything, even calling the food God himself provided as "miserable".  Because of the condition of the people's hearts the Lord sent venomous snakes and they bit the people and many of the Israelites died.  Then the Israelites went to Moses with repentant hearts and asked him to pray to God for Him to take the snakes away.  God then instructs Moses to make a bronze snake and put it up on a pole so that anyone who is bitten can look at it and live.

Now I have heard this story many times but I never once thought to ask, as my Bible teacher did, "Why didn't God have the Israelites make sacrifices instead of making an idol type bronze snake?"  After all, we know how prone these people were to worship false gods.  The answer of course was because it was another way God would use to point to Christ.

I have always understood the symbolism of the people looking at the snake and being saved, just as we look to the cross and are saved, but I never drew the connection between the snake and it representing sin.  This is where I had my "light bulb" experience.  Many people know John 3:16 which says "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."  But I'm guessing far fewer know verses 14 and 15 that says "Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him many have eternal life."  Did you catch it?  Jesus is equating himself with sin.  You can find it again in 2 Corinthians 5:21 "God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God."  Jesus became sin for us (the snake) and all who look to Him with a repentant heart will be saved.

What a great time to pause in your day and thank Jesus for becoming sin for you.  Look to the cross and LIVE!