It was an unusual event that took place during Israel’s journey from Egypt to the Promised Land. This journey that lasted forty years was full of tests: the people “tested” God with their infidelity and lack of trust; in turn this provoked many tests from the Lord in order to purify Israel’s faith and deepen it. Near Mount Hor a particular test took place, which was that of the poisonous serpents. These serpents “bit the people” with the result that many of them died (Numbers 21:6). Then Moses, ordered by the Lord, “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 recovered” (Ibid. 21:9).
Lifted up
We might ask: why such a test? The Lord had chosen Israel to be his own; he had chosen this people, in order to initiate them gradually into his plan of salvation.
Jesus of Nazareth explains the salvific designs of the God of the Covenant. The bronze serpent in the desert was the symbolic figure of the Crucified One. Is someone who had been bitten looked upon the serpent “lifted up” by Moses on a high pole, that person was saved. He remained alive, not because he had looked upon the serpent, but because he had believed in the power of God and his saving love. Thus when the Son of Man is lifted up on the Cross of Calvary, “all who believe will have eternal life in him” (Cfr. John 3:14).
There exists then a profound analogy between that figure and this reality, between that sign of salvation and this reality of salvation contained in the Cross of Christ. The analogy becomes even more striking if we keep in mind that the salvation from physical death, caused by the poison of the serpents in the desert, came about through a serpent. Salvation from spiritual death – the death that is sin and that was caused by man – came about through a Man, through the Son of Man “lifted up” on the Cross. – from a homily given at Arizona State University, September 14, 1987
