Look upon Him Whom You have Pierced

In today’s first reading, Numbers 21: 4-9, the Chosen People complain bitterly against God and Moses for bringing them out  into the desert.  “Why,” they ask, “have you brought us up from Egypt to die in this desert, where there is no food or water? We are disgusted with this wretched food.”  Sound familiar? Every day, no doubt, there is something /someone about whom to grumble  and to bitterly proclaim our disgust.  Winter hangs on. Spring holds back!  Another tornado hits. A mudslide buries homes in a nearby State. Another shooting occurs. War breaks out. Another individual goes astray.  Another crime is exposed to the light.  The list goes on and on and on. Or we may be complaining of less weightier things that are part of daily life: the computer bulks when I am in a hurry to get to something done. The printer breaks down in the middle of an important print job. The battery goes dead on the car when I am rushing to get home, the brakes give out. The kids are screaming for attention when I’m busy. The TV blocks a Packer game, etc. etc., etc.

God was not oblivious of the people’s grumbling, discontent, rebelliousness.  He understood their anger but He also held them accountable.   “In punishment the Lord sent among the people seraph serpents, which bit the people so that many of them died.”   When the people cried out for mercy and acknowledged their sin, the Lord instructed Moses to [m]ake a seraph and mount it on a pole, and whoever look[ed] on it after being bitten….[lived]. The punishment for our sinfulness was the death of Jesus. He became sin for us.  All who look upon the cross of Christ and ask for mercy are saved  both here on earth and in eternity from everlasting death, from being separated from the Lord forever.  Truly the “Lord looked down from his holy height, from heaven he beheld the earth, to hear the groaning of the prisoners [all of us enslaved to sinful patterns of behavior and to destructive attitudes that precede our acts of rebellion against God and others].” He offers His only Begotten Son, allowing Him to become sin  for us in order “to release those doomed to die” (today’s responsorial psalm, Psalm 102), to bring us to a new way of living and thinking, a way that transforms misery into happiness, frustration into joy, rebellion into cooperation, death into life.
Oh, the goodness of our God. What an awesome God! What a merciful God! What a compassionate God!