The story is told of a hiker who one day decided he would take a hike alone up a local mountain trail. On his way up, the trail suddenly gave way and he found himself sliding towards the edge of a cliff. He quickly flipped onto his stomach and began grabbing at things to try to slow his slide and finally within several feet of the cliff he grabbed onto a small shrub. He immediately began shouting for help but no luck. Then, all of the sudden, the small shrub began to pull out by its roots. He was now desperate! He shouted, “Can anybody hear me—God, can you hear me?” The clouds rolled together and a voice from heaven replied, “Yes, I hear you.” “God, help me!” The voice from heaven said, “Trust me, let go of the bush.” The man stared up at heaven and his gaze traveled down to look out over the cliff. Then he shouted, “Can anyone else hear me?”
And that is the question I guess most of us ask at different times. Can anyone else hear me? Can anyone other than God hear and help me? The ancient Jews were tired of wandering over the desert. They wanted a home. They wanted a place they could put down roots. And although Egypt was no picnic—they had after all been slaves—they at least had places to live, they had addresses, they had meals with different spices—onion, garlic that sort of thing. But now, in the desert wilderness they were nomads and lived out of tents; they ate manna and actually they had lamb and beef and milk too. But they didn’t have flour for bread. So, just like we do, they complained. “God, why are we here? Why did you bring us here? We hate it! We don’t have regular food or water and we hate this manna! So what does God do? He changes the taste and texture of the manna, right? He sends down spices for them. No, He changes their focus altogether. He helps them see what the really important things are in life. They suddenly realize that between health and lot of food choices that health is really a lot more important. God hates complaining.
Imagine, an Israelite is walking along, minding his own business or maybe he is reminiscing about some great French Onion Soup they used to eat in Egypt and something brushes against him and he sort of instinctively pushes it away and all of the sudden he feel the bite of the snake on his foot or lower leg. Within seconds the foot is on fire, and then within minutes that whole part of his body is on fire and then before much longer the poor guy convulses and dies. The Old Testament account tells us that many died. It doesn’t take long for the people to turn to Moses to ask him to intercede for them and so Moses makes this large bronze serpent and they put it up on a high pole. People are still getting bitten by the serpents, but now, but now when one of them gets bitten and he is feeling the pain of the venom starting to flash up his leg now he knows what to do. He has to get out of his tent and then look towards the center of the camp and find where the pole is so he can look at the serpent. There may be pain—but he survives. He lives.
The Bible compares our lives as we live them now to those ancient Jews wandering through the desert to the Promised Land. We too are on a journey to a Promised Land. But our future home is not a place that is a hundred miles up the road. Our future home is a different world altogether. That is why Jesus teaches us not to set our hearts on the things of this world. That is why Jesus asks us, “What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world, but loses his soul?”
But despite that we, like the ancient Israelites, tend to get distracted by the here and now. We know this world is not our home, but life around us is happening right now and so the things right now have all our attention. We tend to get more concerned about the things around us than about what God wants us to be concerned about we begin to be more focused on the temporary and not the eternal; and sometimes we complain too. Sort of like the Israelites who began to think that their food from heaven was getting dull. Our hearts begin to grow cold towards God and the things of God. And what does God do? What does He think as we begin to think more about what is material than what is spiritual? God throws marbles under our roller skates on a regular basis. God doesn’t seem to mind if we are off balance; in fact, He puts problems into our lives on a regular basis. He makes us realize that there important choices we constantly need to make. He sends the snakes into the camp. He sends situations that make us need to turn to him for help and he lets other situations develop that grow into problems that we need his help to get through. Money problems, health problems, marriage problems, problems at work, problems with others, problems with self, suddenly, just like ancient Israel we are in the midst of a problem we cannot solve. There are snakes all around us! We need help; we are at the end of our rope, the shrub we are hanging onto is beginning to loosen and we can see that we will slide over the cliff; we don’t know what to do. There is no solution for us.
The Israelites got help. If they would believe what God told Moses, turn and look at the bronze snake up on that pole in the midst of their pain, God would save their lives. God has also provided help for us. From where does our help come? Jesus said to Nicodemus, “Just 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.” Just like the ancient Jews we need to get a grip on what is really important. We need to get our priorities in order. We need to get our hearts right with God. What is important is not what we eat, what we wear, what we have. What is important is our relationship with God. God does not want us an adversarial relationship with Him. Listen to what Jesus said. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” God knows that we need Him. God loves us. He loves you; he loves me. But we are not going to fix our many problems, money, marriage, work, and relationships by continuing to work our own solutions—trying our own ways. God is willing to help us, but we need to turn to him and believe and obey his word what He tells us to do. We need to trust God. We are like that fellow hanging onto the shrub. He looks over the cliff and he doesn’t know if there is a ledge just below eye level that he cannot see—he doesn’t know if he will simply fall. But there is no one else to whom we can turn who has the words of life, only God.
It is the fourth weekend of Lent. May God help us to examine our hearts to see if we are growing cold towards God and may He grant us grace in our times of need to look to Jesus and believe in Him, to be able to let go of the shrub.
