In their journey through the wilderness, the Israelites discovered that complaints and frustrating curses against God and Moses widened their propensity to fall into disastrous accidents. God gave them a solution to appease them. It was not a magical wand which was made of bronze and shaped into a snake. It was an iconic reminder that God is their deliverer and Provider. They were not to be deceived by the poison of the serpent again. It was a call to repentance from deceptions and distortion.

In John’s Gospel, the dialogue between Jesus and the Jews becomes contentious. Then and now, many people could not understand Jesus. They wanted to know who He was and where He was from. He had a simple argument for them: If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I came from God, and now I am here. I did not come on My own, but He sent Me.

To know Jesus, to love Jesus and to follow Jesus is the way to God. It is in God, and only in God, that we will find true happiness, freedom and peace. But the only way to know the truth of that statement is to experience it personally. Looking at the lifted Jesus, the Son of Man lifted up on the cross, do we dare to ask ourselves, “What have I done for Christ? What am I doing for Christ? What shall I do for Christ?”