Listening

Read the text below, preferably aloud.  As you hear the word, “listen with the ear of your heart” for a word or short phrase that God has for you this day.

Numbers  21:4-9

From Mount Hor they set out by way of the Red Sea, to bypass the land of Edom, but the people’s patience was worn out by the journey; so the people complained against God and Moses, “Why have you brought us up from Egypt to die in the wilderness, where there is no food or water?  We are disgusted with this wretched food!”   So the Lord sent among the people seraph serpents, which bit the people so that many of the Israelites died.  Then the people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned in complaining against the Lord and you.  Pray to the Lord to take the serpents from us.”  So Moses prayed for the people, and the Lord said to Moses: Make a seraph and mount it on a pole, and everyone who has been bitten will look at it and recover.  Accordingly Moses made a bronze serpent and mounted it on a pole, and whenever the serpent bit someone, the person looked at the bronze serpent and recovered.

COMMENTS

As I listen to this Scripture passage, the phrase ”worn out by the journey” stands out for me.

The Israelites were on a journey from Mount Hor where Aaron was buried (Numbers 20: 22-29) to the Red Sea.  They were on a detour around the land of Edom.  As is often the case, detours can be filled with unexpected twists and turns, and much frustration.  This was the case here, as the Israelites, “worn out by the journey” began to complain.  Although the Israelites were no strangers to complaining, having done so before against Moses and Aaron, this time they had reached their last straw so to speak.  The Israelites began to lists all that was wrong in their world, and in so doing this time were complaining against God – dying in the wilderness without food and drink, wanting to go back to Egypt, disgusted with the manna that God had provided.

God responded by sending “seraph serpents” which bit and killed many of them.  The word saraph in Hebrew means “burning,” referring to the poisonous, burning bite of the serpents.  The Israelites confessed to Moses that they had sinned and asked him to pray to God to take away the serpents.  Moses prayed and God relented.  God instructed Moses to mount a bronze seraph on a pole, and anyone who looked at it lived.  Hence, the seraph became not only a sign of death but also a symbol of healing – a paradox of death and life.

Where are your frustrations this day?  Where are you burning?  Where do your eyes behold signs of new life?  As you listen to this scripture today, what word or phrase is God whispering to your heart?

– Fr Kirtley Yearwood

© Poisonous Serpent, Thomas Ingmire, 2003. The Saint John’s Bible, Order of Saint Benedict, Collegeville, Minnesota.  Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, Catholic Edition, © 1993, 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America.  Used by permission.  All rights reserved.

MEDITATING

Ruminate on the word you were drawn to in yesterday’s scripture passage (Numbers 21:4-9). What does the word or phrase you have chosen mean to you today?

COMMENTS

As I listen with fresh ears to this Scripture passage, the Holy Spirit draws my focus to the “seraph…on a pole,” and I recall the healing symbol of the medical profession – the caduceus – a serpent entwined around a staff.  Is the serpent really more about healing than destruction?  We often think about the “bad rap” the serpent gets in the Garden of Eden in the third chapter of Genesis, but often forget about the third chapter of the Gospel according to Saint John, where the Evangelist says, “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” (John 3:14-15).  This quotation then leads directly to what is perhaps the best known scripture verse in the entire Bible – “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life” (John 3:16).  The raised serpent linked to the Cross of Christ.  That same Cross that gives life and love to the world.  Can the serpent really be about good?  Where are your serpents?

Just as the Israelites in the wilderness who gazed upon the bronze serpent lived, so now we who gaze upon the meaning of the Crucified Christ shall live.

– Fr Kirtley Yearwood

© Poisonous Serpent, Thomas Ingmire, 2003. The Saint John’s Bible, Order of Saint Benedict, Collegeville, Minnesota.  Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, Catholic Edition, © 1993, 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America.  Used by permission.  All rights reserved.

SEEING

Return to God’s word for the purpose of “hearing and seeing” Christ in the text (Numbers 21:4-9). Fix your gaze on the illumination. Ask God to open the eyes of your heart and enable you to see what God wants you to see.

COMMENTS

As I fix my gaze upon the illumination with the eyes of faith, I am drawn to the wavy words bracketing the varied and odd shapes coursing between them.  This illumination reminds me of the movement of blood within our arteries and veins.  The wavy words are the walls of our blood vessels.  The black forms are the normal healthy, disc-shaped red blood cells.  These forms are like doughnuts without holes in the center.  They contain a protein called hemoglobin that is rich in iron.  This protein carries the oxygen from the lungs that nourish our tissues.  Oxygen is needed for life.

And then there are the green forms – more crescent in shape, reminding me of sickle red blood cells that contain abnormal hemoglobin called sickle hemoglobin or hemoglobin S.  Sickle hemoglobin causes the red blood cells to develop abnormal sickle or crescent shapes.  These sickle cells are stiff and sticky and are therefore less able to naturally conform to the varied courses throughout the blood vessels as they circulate.  They get caught in the blood vessels of organs and limbs, blocking blood flow and causing severe pain (sickle cell crisis).  This gives rise to organ damage.   Serious infections are part of this disease. 

These sickle red cells are clearly not as healthy as the more malleable doughnut shaped normal red blood cells.  Whereas the normal red cells live for 120 days in the blood stream and then die, the sickle red cells live for only 10 to 12 days – a ninety percent reduction in life-span.

Some individuals may carry both types of red blood cells – the normal and the sickle.  These individuals have what is called sickle cell trait.  They inherited a sickle hemoglobin gene from one parent and a normal hemoglobin gene from the other parent.  This is different from sickle cell anemia where the individual inherits two genes for sickle hemoglobin – one from each parent.

This illumination reminds me of sickle cell trait, where some red blood cells are “obedient” in their course through the blood vessels of life, and other red blood cells follow their own way and are caught causing pain along the way.  Which are you?

– Fr Kirtley Yearwood, M.D.

© Poisonous Serpent, Thomas Ingmire, 2003. The Saint John’s Bible, Order of Saint Benedict, Collegeville, Minnesota.  Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, Catholic Edition, © 1993, 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America.  Used by permission.  All rights reserved.

PRAYING

Pray to God, allowing for the transformation of your being and feelings. Give to God what you have found in your heart.

COMMENTS

O God of Life, you know our ways.  We are ever dissatisfied with what is before us.  We constantly give less but want more, serve little but expect greater, avoid much but seek all.  As the Israelites were frustrated and disgruntled in the wilderness, complaining against you about lack of food and water, so we too are apt not to recognize your many blessings in our lives.  

Open our eyes to be hopeful.  Teach us to cry to you in faith and not in despair, in hope and not in fear, in love and not in envy, in delight and not in want.  Strengthen us to fix our gaze on your life-giving abundance and see ourselves as you see us in the truth that reveals your care and compassion that leads to healing in life eternal; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you and Holy Spirit now and forever. Amen.

– Fr Kirtley Yearwood

© Poisonous Serpent, Thomas Ingmire, 2003. The Saint John’s Bible, Order of Saint Benedict, Collegeville, Minnesota.  Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, Catholic Edition, © 1993, 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America.  Used by permission.  All rights reserved.

CONTEMPLATING

Notice the transforming presence of God within you. Let go of words and images. Surrender all that is stirring, even if only briefly, and rest for a few minutes in God’s embrace.

COMMENTS

As I sit quietly and rest with this text of the poisonous serpent and the Israelites in the desert, I am able to better appreciate the movement within the story itself as I open myself to what God is up to in my life.

This encounter with the serpents is the hinged point in Israel’s excursion between their wandering travels in the desert and beginning their journey toward the Promised Land.  And yet, true to human nature, the Israelites begin with complaining.  The story then moves to judgment by snake bites and death.  Repentance comes next as the Israelites confess their sins.  Moses intercedes on behalf of the people and God instructs Moses on what to do.  Moses obeys.  Those who look upon the bronze serpent on its pole live.  Thus the healing takes place in response to the action of the Israelites looking at the bronze serpent. 

God provides the means of healing in response to some action on our part.  Where are the snake bites in my life that are in need of healing?  What is God requiring of me?

– Fr Kirtley Yearwood

© Poisonous Serpent, Thomas Ingmire, 2003. The Saint John’s Bible, Order of Saint Benedict, Collegeville, Minnesota.  Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, Catholic Edition, © 1993, 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America.  Used by permission.  All rights reserved.