Numbers 21:4-9 / John 8:21-30
A sign or a symbol must be clear and unmistakable if they are to point to what they should mean.
A country's flag should indicate without doubt which country it represents. Toilet signs should be distinct from lift signs. And a clinic or medical centre would have the sign of the cross, be it red or green.
But in the 1st reading we hear of a rather strange sign or symbol - a bronze serpent on a standard. And that is the sign/symbol for those who were bitten by the fiery serpents, that if they looked at it, they will not die but will live.
What is strange is that the bronze serpent is shaped like those fiery serpents that bit the people and caused death by their bites.
No matter what the explanation, it is one of the strangest stories in the Bible that will certainly raise questions.
Of course it can be put under one of those mysterious ways in which God works to bring about His saving power.
After all, it was God who told Moses to do that, so it is a divine instruction and not a human invention.
But when we think deeper about it, the cross on which Jesus died was also meant to be an instrument of suffering and death. Yet it has now become the sign/symbol of our salvation.
Just as those who were bitten by the fiery serpents only had to look at the bronze serpent on the standard and lived, we too need to look at the cross of our Saviour and believe that He died to save us.
May we truly believe that the cross is no more about suffering and death, but about forgiveness and life.