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Numbers 21:8-9 – 8 And the Lord said to Moses, “Make a poisonous[a] serpent, and set it on a pole; and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live.” 9 So Moses made a serpent of bronze, and put it upon a pole; and whenever a serpent bit someone, that person would look at the serpent of bronze and live.
Psalm 78:38 –
38 Yet he, being compassionate,
forgave their iniquity,
and did not destroy them;
often he restrained his anger,
and did not stir up all his wrath.
Philippians 2:9-11 –
9 Therefore God also highly exalted him
and gave him the name
that is above every name,
10 so that at the name of Jesus
every knee should bend,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue should confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
John 3:13-15 – 13 No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. 14 And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
Aloha nui loa, ʻŌmea! Grace and Peace to each of you from God our Father and our Lord, Jesus the Christ, in the Power of the Holy Spirit. This Sunday we will be celebrating a Solemnity – The Exaltation of the Holy Cross – instead of The 24th Sunday in Ordinary Time. Since the Feast is on a fixed day, the 14th of September, whenever that date falls on a Sunday, that is the Mass that is celebrated. Now, why is the Cross exalted on this particular day? For that answer we have to return to some Christian personalities, but in history outside the Bible.
Constantine the Great, whose conversion to Christianity marked a major change in the tolerance and treatment of Christians throughout the Roman Empire, in 326 AD appointed his wife, St. Helen (St. Helena in some histories), to go to the Holy Land to search for the True Cross, the cross on which Jesus died, and also other Christian relics. Guided by Bishop of Jerusalem, Saint Macarius, the location of Golgotha was determined to be buried under the debris from the temple to Venus. Excavations there found buried three crosses. A woman with a fatal illness was brought forward to touch each cross. She touched two of them with no change in her condition. When she touched the third, she was miraculously cured. This was the indication that the True Cross had been found. St. Helena thereafter directed the construction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
Persian forces led by Khosrau II captured Jerusalem in 614 AD, and the Relic of the True Cross was captured and removed to Ctesiphon, the capitol of the Sasanian Persian Empire. Fourteen years later, the Byzantine Emperor Haraclius defeated the Sasanians and returned the True Cross to its rightful place in Jerusalem on September 14, 629 AD. The day is memorialized in the Solemnity of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. Now we know. The restoration of the True Cross to its proper place was a great sign of hope for the Byzantine Empire, a new and improved sense of triumph.
That information will help us to understand why the Church has chosen the readings referred to in our Key Verses. The “anchor-piece” of this collection is the account of the Fiery Serpents and the bronze or copper representation of those serpents the Lord instructed Moses to construct. God had told him to put the device on a pole and place it where people could come and look at it. Now, this would have taken some time to prepare; it was not something that would have been readily at hand. We note that they were called saraph serpents – so named because of the fiery burn of their bite and the fiery fevers suffered from that poison. (In case you wondered Seraphim comes from that same Hebrew word שָׂרָף [saw-rawf’]. They were called Seraphim because of their appearance as fiery six-winged creatures who served as the highest of the choirs of Angels, constantly ministering to God and preserving order in all things.) The serpent on the pole was a symbolical creature (from their copper color) representing the serpents that were causing so much havoc among the Israelites. “Hey Chick, what about the commandment not to have any graven image?”
Good question trooper. The commandment against graven images was not to worship any handmade “gods,” not a rule to make no images whatsoever. Consider the seraphim with their wings extended over the Mercy Seat on the Ark of the Covenant. The idea of the seraph on a pole was to [1] help the people understand that redemption from their troubles was not “instant, [2] that what they were required to do was follow a command from God (which sort of obedience they were failing spectacularly in at the time), and [3] not as an act of worship, but as an act of faith they would have to get themselves to a place where they could see the “serpent on a pole” and look at it as God had commanded. As you can see in the image in the paragraph, Jesus referred to this symbolical device in this Gospel Key Verse for today. There is a significant difference in the outcome between these two images. For the Israelites in the desert being afflicted by the desert seraphs, seeing the serpent lifted up on the pole and believing God’s promise connected to that act meant they would live a new and improved life. We also are afflicted by the burning pains of sin and when we – in the Power of Faith – look upon the Son of God lifted up on the Cross, we can trust that God intends that 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. Now then, talk about new and improved! I don’t think there can be anything better then that! (Here it comes again.) You guessed correctly. It’s all part of God’s Absolutely Perfect Plan to prove that You Only Live Once – and It’s Forever!
Now, isn’t it a good thing that
he, being compassionate,
forgave their iniquity,
and did not destroy them;
often he restrained his anger,
and did not stir up all his wrath.?
There could be no new and improved life of any kind – mortal or immortal – unless we had access to, and could depend on, the Perfect Integrity, Endless Mercy, Everlasting Love, And Eternal Salvation from God through the Christ of God, Jesus. As we mentioned recently, all of that is delivered in Love to us as an effect of God’s Immutable Justice.
It was that Immutable Justice which motivated Jesus in the way The Apostle Paul describes in our Key Verse from the epistles: Christ Jesus, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross. It is HIS death that ends Death, HIS death that restores Life, HIS death the draws in those who are obedient enough to Love him and Love him enough to be Obedient. “They will look upon him whom they have pierced,” (See Psalm 22:16–17, Zechariah 12:10, John 19:31-37, and Revelation 1:7) and “at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” This echoes Isaiah 45:23 –
23 By myself I have sworn,
from my mouth has gone forth in righteousness
a word that shall not return:
“To me every knee shall bow,
every tongue shall swear.”
The most vile creature on the planet is the one that bites us and forces its poison – sin – into our lives. The most Glorious creature on the planet is The One to whom we can look – in F.A.I.T.H. believing – to cleanse us from all the poisons inside us and give us a Life that is truly New and Improved, (one more time for the Peanut Gallery) because WHY would anyone want anything less? King Josiah wanted more for his people. When Hilkiah, the High Priest at the time of Josiah, went to the Temple to find out what things of value were inside, he found a book. He gave the book to the Nation’s Secretary, Shaphan. Shaphan read the book and took it to Josiah and read it aloud to the King. When Josiah hear the Words of The Law, he remembered! He tore his clothes, an act of humbling himself, and wept. He sent a delegation to the prophetess Huldah to enquire as to what they should do. Huldah told them that because Josiah had humbled himself, he would not live to see the final fall of Jerusalem. He who had looked to the Lord and remembered his Justice would live on a little longer. That was God’s Gift of Love because of Josiah’s obedience in remembering that God is Love. I love you, adelphos, but praise and bless the Lord God Almighty, Jesus Loves us even more!
There is an epilogue, of sorts, to this account of the desert seraphs and the Serpent on a Pole. Around 600 years after The Exodus from Egypt and the event of the Desert Seraphs, during the reign of King Josiah in Judah, guess what Israel and Judah did. Yup! They FORGOT! They got so wrapped up in copying their idolatrous neighbors that they forgot there even was a Law they were supposed to follow. The kings Ahaz and Manasseh (and for only 2 years, Amon) led their kingdoms into dark, evil, deeply-sinful acts. One of the worst was the cult of Nehustan נְחֻשְׁתָּן {nekh-oosh-tawn‘}. A rough interpretation of Nehustan is “thing of brass.” Rather than continue to understand and appreciate the fact that the Copper (Bronze) Serpent was a gift from their ancestors that help them to learn Obedience, they made it an object of worship – a graven image to be idolized – as part of they quickening decline into deeper disobedience and greater sin. As we ourselves so often do, they forgot (again!) and it cost them. King Josiah sought out that idol Nehushtan and utterly destroyed it because he loved his people and because he loved God. We can learn an important lesson from this narrative: Don’t forget! BUT, if we do, we have the Power of Metanoia, the power to turn around and repent, to seek forgiveness, and to return to Love as New and Improved Believers in the Eternal Word of God. Amen?
Don’t forget Philippians 4:8. Amen!
Whatever, whenever, wherever, whoever, however, if ever, forever —
at your service, Belovéd!
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Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture passages are from the New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE) New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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