But The Snakes are Still Here!

By Fred Vilbig

In the book of Numbers, there is what I think is a strange story about what God did to the Israelites when they were in the desert. They had been eating manna and quail for quite some time. I would imagine that eating the same thing day after day would get old. It probably lost its taste and became unappetizing.

So the Israelites complained against God. In response, the Lord sent poisonous snakes among them. Many Israelites were bitten and died. The people then realized their mistake and repented. They asked Moses to pray to God for them. “Pray to the Lord to take away the serpents from us.” Numbers 21:7.

Moses prayed, and God answered their prayer, but not in the way they had hoped. Instead, God told Moses to sculpt a bronze serpent and put it on a pole. Whenever anyone was bitten by a snake, if they would just look at the bronze serpent, they would be healed. Numbers 21:8-9.

This just strikes me as strange. God did not take the snakes away like the Israelites had asked. He did not make the snakes non-poisonous. He did not stop the snakes from biting the Israelites.

He could have done any of those things, but He didn’t. He just gave them a cure.
It seems to me that this is a good analogy to the world we live in. Jesus came to save us all. He lived among us and taught us. He suffered the Passion and died for our sins, and then He rose from the dead. Christ was victorious over death. By uniting ourselves to Christ through baptism and the Eucharist, we also are victorious over death. In a way, we are grafted on to Christ. We can always sever that bond by mortal sin, but short of that, we are connected to the Body of the Resurrected Christ.

But most of the time it really doesn’t seem that way. There are still poisonous snakes amongst us. There is war, hunger, disease, hatred, terrible sadness, and death. The snakes are still here!

So what are we to make of all of this? I have often thought that the evil in the world is the result of original and individual sin. God has answered out prayers by sending us Jesus, but just as with the Israelites, He did not take away the snakes. We still live in a broken world. But much like the Israelites, He tells us that if we just keep our eyes focused on the corpus that is hanging on a pole, the snakes ultimately will not harm us. Yes they may bite us, and the bites may sting and burn, but by staying focused on the Cross of Christ, those bites will not kill us; they will not overcome us. I’m not saying that I understand the wisdom of God in this, but I do know that He is God, and I am not. And that’s a good thing. Blessed be God forever!