248. Friday after Trinity Sunday.
Lord our God, do thou
expound the scripture to us.
Numbers 21, 5-9. And the people spake against God, and against Moses, Wherefore have ye brought us up out of Egypt, to die in the wilderness? for there is no bread, neither is there any water; and our soul loatheth this light bread. And the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died. Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord, and against thee; pray unto the Lord, that he take away the serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the people. And the Lord said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live. And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole: and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived.
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“As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have eternal life.” The brazen serpent was without venom; but in appearance it was exactly like the venomous serpents. It hung on the pole dead, and was a remedy against death. Even so is he who knew no sin made to be sin for us; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. (2 Corinthians 5, 21). Bengel writes: “In like manner as the brazen serpent was a serpent without venom, but with healing against venomous serpents; so the Son of Man is the man without sin, but with healing against the old serpent.” Another writer, Besser, says: “Jesus hangs on the cross, not in sinful flesh, but in the likeness of sinful flesh, bearing on his body our sins; and against the serpent bite of sin, which has inflicted on our nature a mortal wound, there is healing, in that sin is condemned and punished on the body of the Son of Man.” In the words of Saint Augustine, “a serpent is nailed fast, in order that the serpent may have power no more.” What does this mean? Death is nailed fast, in order that death may lose its power. Or, as Chrysostome puts it: “There is a serpent wounded, and a serpent healed; here death brings corruption, and death brings deliverance from corruption.”
Were the unfortunates who had been mortally wounded in the wilderness obliged to run hither and thither, and to do many things in order to be healed, and live? How would it have been possible for them to do this? No, they were only to look upon the brazen serpent; that was all. God himself said: “Every one that is bitten, when he looked upon it, shall live.” “And it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived.” Every one without exception was permitted, nay commanded, to look upon the brazen serpent; and in no case did it fail, that when he did this, he lived. Thus God has commanded us all to believe, and has ordained that whosoever believes in the crucified Jesus shall have life everlasting. Only believe in him; nothing else whatsoever is required of you; nothing else can save you. God has given every sinner permission, nay orders, to believe. For all men; for you who have been wounded by the devil, whoever and whatever you may be; for each and all of you Christ is crucified; and it shall come to pass that everyone that believes in him shall live. God has said it, and it cannot fail to come true. Healing proceeds out of him unceasingly, through the word and sacraments, and is received by the faith of the heart. But this life of Jesus, which is given us through his death, and is our healing against death; what is that but the love in which he died for us, and vanquished death, and which thereby again belongs to us? What is it but the very life of God, in which we were created, but which we lost through the malice and the serpent bite of the devil?
Praise be to thee, Lord Jesus, who didst allow them to hang on the cross for us, and didst become the Son of Man, foreshadowed by the serpent of brass, and lifted up on the accursed tree! Give us grace to believe in thee, to feel thy life in our souls, and to live in thee forevermore. Amen.*
Jesus, refuge of the weary,
Object of the Spirit’s love,
Fountain in life’s desert dreary,
Savior from the world above:
O how oft thine eyes, offended,
Gaze upon the sinner’s fall!
Yet, upon the cross extended,
Thou didst bear the pain of all. [TLH 145; LSB 423]
* Here the head of the family says a short morning or evening prayer in his own words, and closes with the Lord’s Prayer and the Benediction. This is to be done every day. If the stanzas are not sung, they may be read in their proper place before the impromptu petition and the Lord’s Prayer.