The Other Life

We can get to a point where we lose patience, even with God.

From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; but the people became impatient on the way. The people spoke against God and against Moses, "Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we detest this miserable food." Then the Lord sent poisonous serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many Israelites died. The people came to Moses and said, "We have sinned by speaking against the Lord and against you; pray to the Lord to take away the serpents from us." So Moses prayed for the people. And the Lord said to Moses, "Make a poisonous serpent, and set it on a pole; and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live." 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. - Numbers 21:4-9

I don't know if we can blame the people for getting angry.

They are takiing forever, literally a lifetime, to go from Egypt to the promised land, and they don't even know where it is.

They have no food and water and what they do get to eat, they despise.  

Yet when God hears their complaints, what does He do?  He sends snakes?

I find it hard to believe that was God's doing.  Unless it was all a plan to get the people to believe in Moses as a leader.  But still, people died.

Sure, there are consequences in life.  We live and die surrounded by threats and evils.

In today's Gospel reading by John, Jesus compares himself to the bronze serpent that Moses holds up in the desert to give people life.

Jesus, like the serpent, will save people from death, but the life he gives is eternal.

People die without being saved, and people die who are saved.  God gives the choice to us.  Which do we want?

We can complain that life is not as great as we would like it to be, but this life is not the only life God offers.

The one we should be reaching for is yet to come.

More to come...