Behold the Serpent

Horror. Pain. Sorrow. Shock. Anguish. Darkness. Death. There are so many words to illustrate the calamity of Good Friday, but none of them fully captures it all. How do you describe the savagery of creatures crucifying their Creator? How do you explain the injustice of sinners condemning Perfection? This day is ineffable.

And yet, we must gaze at the details, for in beholding them we find salvation. The picture certainly isn’t pretty (to say the least), but somehow the gore brings healing and life. Isaiah prophesied this paradox, saying, “He has no form or comeliness; and when we see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him . . . and we hid, as it were, our faces from Him . . .” (53:2, 3). Then, Isaiah declares the outcome: “By His knowledge My righteous Servant shall justify many . . .” (53:11). The reality of Jesus’ crucifixion is too horrific for us to behold. In response, we hide our faces. However, if we will choose to look upon what repulses us, the result is unexpected: justification, salvation, eternal life.

Jesus also prophesied this paradox: “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:14, 15). When Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, it was an odd gesture. It was not the most obvious cure to Israel’s plague. In response to their sin, God had “sent fiery serpents among the people” (Numbers 21:6). As they were dying, God also gave Moses the remedy: “Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a pole; and it shall be that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, shall live” (21:8). By looking upon the consequence of their sin, somehow they are forgiven of their sins and healed of the poison. Jesus used this story as the template for His crucifixion.

On the cross, the world beholds the consequence of its sin. Death. However, the result is eternal life to those who behold and believe.

Ironically, the vocation of the church is to herald the most tragic event in human history as “good news.” We compel the world to see God’s beauty by describing an event void of all beauty. Jesus promised, “And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to Myself” (John 12:32). We typically apply this verse to worship songs and church services where we magnify the name of Jesus (which is not a bad application). However, John explains Jesus’s original meaning in the next verse: “This He said, signifying by what death He would die” (12:33). By “lifted up,” Jesus meant death on a cross. Somehow, that death would draw all peoples.

Here’s a question each of us can ask ourselves: Do I shy away from the darker bits of my story? When I tell others what God has done for me, do I include the cross moments or do I only tell the resurrection moments?

If we only tell the world about the garden of resurrection and leave out the garden of anguish, then we’re doing them a disservice. It’s the cross, the betrayal, the hypocrisy, the pain of Good Friday that makes it good. It’s the bad parts that make it beautiful. Let God’s story and your story speak to others in ways that may be counterintuitive, but, in the end, they release life.