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Recently, I heard the Bach cantata O heilges Geist und Wasserbad<\/em>. The cantata\u2019s text is based on John 3:1-15, which was the Gospel lesson at the service where the cantata was first performed.<\/p>\nThe image that stuck with me and about which I have been doing a lot of thinking was the story of the fiery serpents sent among the people of Israel in the wilderness.<\/p>\n
Both the Gospel lesson for the day and the Bach cantata allude to this. You might remember this tense episode during the Exodus. The people of God had been liberated from crushing oppression in Egypt\u2014the plagues, Passover, walking dry-shod through the sea, manna from heaven and water from the rock! We can only imagine the excitement of those heady days when God set Israel free.<\/p>\n
But now the journey had become long and they had to detour around Edom. The people became impatient and angry. They began to murmur. They had murmured before against Moses and Aaron, but now their murmuring was directed at God. It turned out to be the same old laundry list of complaints: \u201cWhy have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we detest this miserable food\u201d (Numbers 21:5).<\/p>\n
Now remember, this \u201cmiserable food\u201d was manna from heaven. God promised to provide enough for each person each day. They were to collect no more and no less than a day\u2019s supply. Some collected more, not trusting that God would be faithful. Some collected less. These were the Lutheran Israelites, who did not believe that God\u2019s all sufficient love was for them too.<\/p>\n
Enter the snakes. \u201cThen the Lord sent poisonous serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many Israelites died\u201d (Numbers 21:6). A calamity had befallen the people. In their panic and in their pain they pleaded for deliverance. God rescued Israel, not so much from poisonous serpents but from Israel\u2019s own faithless and poisonous complaints that had appeared long before the snakes did. In that faithlessness, Israel had set itself against God.<\/p>\n
Israel\u2019s rescue was a restored relationship with their true God, not simply escaping the snakes. God rescued Israel both from themselves and from God\u2019s judgment. The symbol of their salvation was a fiery serpent\u2014a bronze serpent lifted up on a pole. The very image of suffering and death was also the image of life and salvation.<\/p>\n
This is what Jesus was talking about in his encounter with Nicodemus. \u201cAnd as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life\u201d (John 3:14-15). This is what Bach\u2019s cantata sings about: \u201cYou know, my God, how painfully I feel the old serpent\u2019s sting; sin\u2019s poison destroys my body and soul. Help me, so that in faith I choose you, blood-red image of a serpent, that was raised on the cross.\u201d The cross in John\u2019s Gospel, like the pole with the bronze serpent, signifies both the poison of death and the life-giving power of God.<\/p>\n
I have read Numbers several times and there is no indication that the serpents ever left. The plague of serpents remained an ongoing threat and the raised bronze serpent remained an ongoing reminder of the need to turn to the healing power of God.<\/p>\n
And here\u2019s what really has me thinking\u2014the word for fiery serpent is \u201cseraphim.\u201d Seraphim. The same angels who, with the cherubim, attend God. Could the fiery serpents be snake-angels that like border collies nip at us when we go our own way? Could the sting of their bite remind us to look to the cross, the death of our death? Could the snake-angels be fiery guardian angels who bring us back to the truth that, left to our own devices, we are helpless and sometimes dangerous and apart from God, that we can do nothing?<\/p>\n
Just wondering.<\/p>\n
The Rev. Elizabeth A. Eaton
\nPresiding Bishop
\nEvangelical Lutheran Church in America<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cI Wonder\u201d Recently, I heard the Bach cantata O heilges Geist und Wasserbad. The cantata\u2019s text is based on John 3:1-15, which was the Gospel lesson at the service where the cantata was first performed. The image that stuck with me and about which I have been doing a lot of thinking was the story […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":4152,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[81,1],"tags":[539,812,538,519],"yoast_head":"\n