#nehustan

                        I enjoyed Deacon John’s homily this week about the history of Catholic veneration of the Holy Cross and the rebellious Israelites who, once bitten in the plague of seraphs, gazed at Moses’ serpent on a pole for healing (Numbers 21:8.)  The Old Testament reading tied in nicely to the New Testament selection for the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross (John 3:14): “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up. “  For me, this is as good an explanation as any on why Catholics display and venerate the crucifix.  Catholics share a devotion to the cross with our Protestant brethren, but for us the crucifix is especially special.  The apostle Paul writes:

“For indeed Jews ask for signs and Greeks search for wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. (1 Corinthians 1:22-24)

Deacon John didn’t discuss the ignoble end of the serpent staff.  In 2 King 18:4, righteous King Hezekiah smashes Moses’ pole snake because the Israelites had begun to worship the Nehushtan (evidently a fancy name for bronze serpent on a stick) and burn incense to it.  Like we often do, the Israelites had become muddled and had, over time, followed a great gift meant to focus their attention on the Father into some kind bizarre rotary that diverted them into idolatry.  

That is our tendency as well. When we begin a daily devotion, the activities primarily serve the correct purpose of bringing us closer to God. Sometime later a devotion can become a routine exercise like a calisthenic where improving our relationship to God ceases to be the primary purpose.  Often it is best to find a different devotion at that point.   That the bronze serpent of the Old Testament prefigured Christ’s sacrifice for us certainly would not have been apparent to the Jews in Hezekiah’s time. Jesus hadn’t come yet, so smashing what had become another stumbling block was an inspired decision.  Rock and Roll fans can wonder if Hezekiah used Pete Townsend like flair in the smashing.

If the Nehishtan prefigures Christ crucified, what does that mean?  When the Israelites, who had been bitten by the poisonous seraphs, gazed on the bronze serpent, they did not die.  On one level, because different forms of cancer seem to be careening through my immediate family like successive tsunamis, I am sort of ticked off at King Hezekiah for smashing an object that had some pretty effective therapeutic properties. Still, Moses’ entire generation minus Joshua and Caleb perished in the wilderness before the Chosen People entered the Promised Land, so maybe the bronze serpent was just good for snake bites.

For the Israelites the Nehishtan was neither the fountain of youth nor a sorcerer’s stone (gratuitous Harry Potter reference.)  It offered them a second chance after their rebellious sin.  When we reject God’s plan by sinning in modern times, we are not plagued by snakes, spiders or flu-like symptoms; the severing of our relationship to Christ usually has no overt bodily indicators.  Certainly confession lines would be longer if everyone who committed a mortal sin started keeling over dead at an alarming rate. The side effects would be dramatic: half of all television shows would be canceled, the Internet would suddenly become safe for kids again and all airlines would offer only one-way tickets to Vegas.  In reality, God wants us to choose him without coercion, so other than various venereal diseases there is no special immediate scourge against those estranged from the Father’s bosom. The soul-dead walk among us undetectable zombies, discernible only by their attitude and noticeable lack of spiritual fruit.

For those of us that do choose to gaze at the crucifix or otherwise contemplate Christ’s sacrifice for us on the cross, there is an available cure from deadly sin.  The crucifix provides both assurance to sinners that their sins are forgiven and an understanding of the price that was paid to redeem our transgressions.  Realistically, we tend to live our daily lives like adolescents shopping in a mall of sin with Jesus’ debit card tied to His infinite bank account: a little anger here, maybe some pride in the store over there, a stop at Victoria’s Secret for an order of lust and then on to the food court for some gluttony.  Because we rarely examine our consciences, we scurry about drinking in soul-death with only passing feelings of guilt.  Most of us buy our own pocket poison seraphs, upgrade their potency whenever our plans allow and sometimes decorate the seraphs with tasteful or stylish cases and holsters.

If we instead choose to gaze at Jesus on the cross, we are faced with reality.  There is a cost for our sin.  He pays it.  Nobody stares at the crucifix and is overcome by a need to eat a dozen Krispy Kremes, yell at a spouse or covet a neighbor’s Lexus.  There is great love in the crucifix, peace and accountability.  In order to follow Christ we must cultivate a feeling of his presence to an extend that we banish sin instead of turning our back on Him to root around in every available gopher hole, in hopes of getting an intoxicating bite of venom.

My friend Rudy told me once that at a certain moment of his life, he was given the gift of truly understanding the meaning of Christ’s sacrifice for him.  The realization that God sacrificed His only Son for my friend’s sins drove Rudy to his knees not in prayer but in tears that echoed Jesus’ tears in the garden of Gethsemane.  That type of realization necessitates a course change in life.  Once someone understands the cross, then the seraph bites of sin can no longer be considered loving nips from a pet.  There is a recognition that any sin is truly the poison to a soul which has been redeemed by the blood of Christ exacted in violence from a God-Man who truly loves us beyond any reason that we can understand.

In even the worst situations meditating on the Cross can transform a life not in the superficial way of a lottery win but in a substantial way that can alter the eternal outcome of one, several or many lives.  I have another friend who is most of the way through a messy divorce.  It has been a dark process for him, but he has sustained himself by contemplating Jesus’ passion and by spending countless hours in Eucharistic Adoration.  As he nears the end of what has been an incredibly painful experience, my friend has found peace.  He told me the other week that his wife, on the other hand, is completely in turmoil. They have both walked a similarly painful hike, but while one chose a secular path, the other has marched with his eyes fixed upon Christ on His Holy Cross.  She is now soliciting spiritual advice from the man that she rejected as a husband and he is peacefully providing her with nurturing support.  He has altered his natural animosity so that his actions conform to the example of Christ.  The Way of the Cross is a strange path indeed.