It was a long, hard trek through the wilderness. Of course, when you've fled from slavery and have little to nothing, it seems to make things much longer and harder. But, there were promises: land as far as the eye can see, milk and honey, fertile soils, and the presence of God...and, along the way, food and drink, and the presence of God.

But, you know how things go when you keep doing things and it seems like you're getting nowhere. You know how it is when you don't get your way; when things don't go your way. You start to grumble and complain. You start to play the blame game. You start to gossip and spread rumors, all the while lying. You find yourself in a predicament or some other unfortunate or unwanted or unpleasant situation and you start thinking that it's gotta be someone's fault that you're like this or that things are like this...someone else's fault, that is. And the whole time, you make stuff up to make it seem worse.

Well, that was us. We were breaking camp and making our way, once again, through the barren wilderness. We were leaving Mount Hor, trying to go around the land of Edom (who wants to interact with Edomites, after all?). And it all was getting to be too long, too much, too unpleasant. So, we cried out against God and against Moses. We accused them of bringing us to this barren land to die.

I mean, we had it good back in Egypt; at least, it was better than this, so we thought. We were living in a terrific area of Egypt—the fertile plains of the Nile River delta. We had more than enough food, and good food at that. And, despite the harsh work conditions, we were taken care of.

Then, we found ourselves in a barren land where nothing grows—sand and dust and rocks as far as the eye can see—not that we could have planted anything anyway, the way we were going through that wilderness. Oh, and lest I forget, it felt like we had been in that wilderness for ages, and it didn't look like we were going to be done with it any time soon. In this wilderness, we had just enough food, but it was the same thing over and over and over again—one gets a little tired of flat bread and quail every day. And that brings us back to the accusation: why in the world were we out there? Things went from bad but bearable to downright deplorable.

So, we accused God and Moses of wanting to kill us. And we complained about the care we were given—how we hated where we were and the food that we were given—even claiming that we had no food. We wanted something more and we wanted it right away.

And we got it. It just wasn't what we were expecting.

The way I remember it, one night I heard a scream from the booth next to mine. I didn't think anything of it at the time, and fell back asleep. The next morning, I awoke to the sound of a crowd gathered around that booth. It appeared as if my neighbor had died in the night, and the only clue to the cause of her death were two puncture marks on her ankle—a snake bite. We didn't find a snake anywhere. So, at first, we thought it an unfortunate random occurrence.

That was, until the next night, when a dozen or so more people were bitten and died. From there, it didn't take long before the snakes were showing up every night and every day biting people and killing them. And these weren't any ordinary snakes, but they were fiery serpents. I lost count of the number that were killed, but the snakes were unrelenting. Nothing we did would stop them. They found ways into areas we thought secure; they sneaked up on people in broad daylight. It was miserable!

That was, until it dawned on someone what we had done. We had sinned against God and against Moses. Repentant, we approached Moses and said, "We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against you. Pray to the Lord, that he take away the serpents from us."

And Moses prayed.

The next day, there was a pole set in the middle of the camp. On the pole was a fiery serpent cast out of bronze. And Moses voice thundered through the camp, "If you are bitten, cast your eyes upon the bronze serpent, and you will live. Thus says the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the land of slavery."

No sooner had he finished saying that when I felt a sharp pain in my ankle. I winced in pain and noticed two snake-fang puncture marks. Tearfully, I gazed upon the leafless tree in the midst of the camp, confessing what I had learned to be my sin, and was miraculously healed. Gone were the puncture marks, gone was the pain, I was restored...but, more importantly, I was forgiven!

How great is the love of God that He would have mercy on His children to restore and forgive them. Surely, this promise will last throughout the generations to the end of time.

Dear hearers, gaze upon your Savior. As we find ourselves in the midst of Lent, gaze upon your Savior not ascended, not risen, but crucified. Peer into his wounds—his head, his back, his hands, his feet, and his side. Look upon the stripes in which you find your healing—restoration and forgiveness and life.

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

"For God so loved the world," the evangelist wrote, and how often do we look at the word "so" and think something other than what was intended. "For God so loved the world," Jesus said, and we hear, "God loved the world so much." And while it is not wrong to believe that, for God's love is very great—so great that it compels Him to have mercy on the world in the person of His Son—it is, however, not what the text is saying.

Listen to it in context:

[A]s 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. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

Jesus connects his coming into the world with the Hebrews wandering in the wilderness. More specifically, He connects His coming into the world and His being lifted up with the lifting up of the bronze serpent in the midst of the Hebrew camp.

As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so that those snake-bitten people may look upon it and live, so the Son of Man would be lifted up, so that whoever believes in Him may live. For just as God loved the snake-bitten Hebrews in the wilderness, so He also loves all of the serpent-bitten world, that He would give His Son to be lifted up on the leafless tree of the cross so that whoever believes in Him would not die from their serpent bites, but have eternal life. His coming into the world was for life, not death, just as the Hebrews' exodus from Egypt was for life, not death!

But, let's ponder this serpent-bitten world for a bit. Let us look at ourselves and see how we stack up to the Hebrews in the wilderness. Are we at all dissimilar from them?

After all, you know how things go when you keep doing things and it seems like you're getting nowhere. You know how it is when you don't get your way; when things don't go your way. You start to grumble and complain. You start to play the blame game. You start to gossip and spread rumors, all the while lying. You find yourself in a predicament or some other unfortunate or unwanted or unpleasant situation and you start thinking that it's gotta be someone's fault that you're like this or that things are like this...someone else's fault, that is. And the whole time, you make stuff up to make it seem worse.

And so you find someone else to put the blame on. You blame God. You blame the agents God has placed over you, such as your pastors, your parents, your teachers, your employers, your government. You do so all the while ignoring or denying the sin that resides within—the same sin that brings you to play the pity and blame game. And I know you do, because I do it, too.

We, my friends, have been bitten by the serpent that is Satan, and the world and our sinful nature tell us that our problems are the fault of someone else. And we believe them. Be warned, dear hearers, that if you continue wallow in this pity and blame game, it will kill you. You will die from that snake bite, and I am not merely referring to physical death. Unrepentant sin kills, and it kills for eternity.

But, just as God loved the Hebrews wandering in the desert—who were wallowing in pity and blame and being bitten by fiery serpents—that He heard their repentant cries in Moses' prayer and had a bronze serpent placed on a pole so that anyone bitten can look at it an live, so He loves this serpent-bitten world that He sent His only-begotten Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.

Dear hearers, gaze again upon your Savior. Still, as we find ourselves in the midst of Lent, gaze upon your Savior not ascended, not risen, but crucified. Peer into his wounds—his head, his back, his hands, his feet, and his side. Look upon those stripes and see in them your snake bites. On the cross, lifted up, Christ bore the weight of the world's sin, died with it, and there destroyed it. "For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God."

[A]s 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. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

Yes, dear hearers, when you are serpent-bitten, in repentance look up at your Savior on the cross, for it is there that you have the forgiveness for all of your sins.