And the LORD said to Moses: Make a seraph and mount it on a pole, and everyone who has been bitten will look at it and recover.
Accordingly Moses made a bronze serpent and mounted it on a pole, and whenever the serpent bit someone, the person looked at the bronze serpent and recovered. (Numbers 21:8-9 NABRE)
The Israelites had been punished by God because of their complaints against him, until Moses prayed to God on their behalf. In today's passage, we see God's saving response to Moses' prayer. In the Gospel of John this scene is referred to as prefiguring the crucifixion of Jesus.* John writes:
And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up,
so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life."
For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.
For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him. (John 3:14-16)
Today, on this Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, I will consider the words of Saint Theodore of Studios (759–826), "How splendid the cross of Christ! It brings life, not death; light, not darkness; Paradise, not its loss. It is the wood on which the Lord, like a great warrior, was wounded in hands and feet and side, but healed thereby our wounds. A tree has destroyed us, a tree now brought us life."
Jesus, Merciful Savior who died on the Holy Cross to redeem men's sins, have mercy on us.
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