Christ the Great Serpent of Salvation

If you look at the calendar, you will notice that there are five Sundays in Lent. In the middle of our Lenten journey, on the third Sunday, we find ourselves at the Adoration of the Cross. It is on this day that we can remind ourselves that we have reached the halfway point in Lent. Only four more weeks of fasting! Nevertheless, this Sunday has more significance than just that. It is a road sign that directs us as to what Lent is all about - the Savior’s death upon the cross and His life-giving Resurrection on the third day.

The Gospel reading for this day comes from the Gospel of Mark 8:34 – 9:1 which concerns discipleship and taking up one’s cross to follow Jesus. However, let us instead take a look at another cross-centered passage from John’s Gospel which reads, “…as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up…” (John 3:14). If we interpret that verse using St. Gregory of Nyssa’s fourth century treatise entitled “The Life of Moses” we will quickly realize that it applies equally well for this Sunday.

The first time that a serpent appears in Holy Scripture is in chapter 3 of the Book of Genesis. When you have a chance, get your Bible and read the entire chapter for yourself. This chapter tells the story of Satan the Great Deceiver, who, in the form of a serpent, lures Adam and Eve to partake of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil with the promise of becoming like God. The ancestral sin, the disobedience to God’s ordinance to not eat of that tree, brings about the Fall of mankind and the sting of that sin which is Death. Prior to banishing Adam and Eve from the Garden into this present existence, God curses the serpent and promises that one day Eve’s seed, one of her offspring, will bring about the defeat of the Great Serpent of Deception.

Returning to the passage from John’s Gospel, we see that it is a reference to Numbers 21:5-9 where, after leaving Mount Hor and heading towards the Red Sea, the Israelites become impatient with their situation and tired of eating manna. The text reads:

…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 loathe this worthless food.” Then the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died. And the people came to Moses, and said, “We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against you; pray to the Lord, that he take away the serpents from us.” So Moses prayed for the people. And the Lord said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a pole; and every one who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live.” So Moses made a bronze serpent, and set it on a pole; and if a serpent bit any man, he would look at the bronze serpent and live.

St. Gregory interprets this passage¹ by stating that the Israelites, even though they were fleeing their captivity in Egypt for the Promised Land, were still very much attached to Egypt, an allegory for sin, just like all of us fallen and sinful humans are still attached to our own personal “Egypts” which result from our fallen sinful nature. Thus, Israel then, and us now, become prey to the serpents of sin that the Devil sends to us. Bitten by these serpents, we fall victim to their poison both spiritually and physically. In his infinite mercy, though, God provided a remedy for the serpents’ bites. God appoints Moses to make a bronze serpent and to suspend it high upon a pole so that those who were bitten by the serpents may gaze upon the bronze serpent and live. St. Gregory calls to our attention that it is not the actual serpent that is lifted up, but rather the “likeness” of the serpent, and in that we see a foreshadowing, or type, of our Lord Jesus Christ. St. Paul the Apostle affirms St. Gregory’s interpretation when he states that, “…God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh could not do; sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh…” (Romans 8:3) and also “…He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5:21). God comes to us in our fallen nature.

But how does God do that? How does He come in the likeness of sinful humanity? He does it through the Incarnation. Turning to Exodus 7:8-10 we read:

…the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “When Pharaoh says to you, ‘Prove yourselves by working a miracle,’ then you shall say to Aaron, ‘Take your rod and cast it down before Pharaoh, that it may become a serpent.’” So Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and did as the Lord commanded; Aaron cast down his rod before Pharaoh and his servants, and it became a serpent.

St. Gregory tells us that this passage is to be understood as speaking of Christ’s Incarnation. To support his idea, he refers to Psalm 77:10 which states, “…the right hand of the Most High has changed.” St. Gregory interprets this verse by saying, “…although the divine nature is contemplated in its immutability [i.e. its changelessness], by its condescension to the weakness of human nature it was changed into our shape and form.”² Fifty-six years after the death of St. Gregory of Nyssa, his words would resonate with the dogmatic decree of the fourth ecumenical council which stated that the Lord Jesus Christ who was incarnate of the Virgin Mary and became a human being is fully divine and fully human without separation, mixture, division, or confusion. Thus, our Apostolic an Orthodox Christian faith declares that the divine Son of Man, the power and wisdom of God³, who sits at the right hand of God the Father, humbled himself, being born of the Theotokos in the likeness of mankind, with our humanity, so that He can die the death on the Cross.⁴

But why the Incarnation and why the Cross? Turning again to Exodus, we read:

Then Pharaoh summoned the wise men and the sorcerers; and they also, the magicians of Egypt, did the same by their secret arts. For every man cast down his rod, and they became serpents. But Aaron's rod swallowed up their rods (Exodus 7:11-12).

St. Gregory interprets these verses by stating,

…the apostolic word testifies that the Lord was made sin for our sake by being invested with our sinful nature. This figure therefore is rightly applied to the Lord. For if sin is a serpent and the Lord became sin, the logical conclusion should be evident to all: By becoming sin he became also a serpent, which is nothing other than sin. For our sake he became a serpent that he might devour and consume the Egyptian serpents produced by the sorcerers.⁵

There we have it. God promised Eve that her seed would bruise the head of the deceiving serpent. Moses lifted up the likeness of a serpent on a pole and Israel was healed. Aaron’s rod became a serpent and swallowed up the Pharaoh’s serpents. All of that Old Testament imagery is fulfilled when our Lord Jesus Christ, having taken on the likeness of sin in His flesh, while yet committing no sin Himself, was lifted up on the pole of the Cross as the Great Serpent of Salvation not just to bruise, but to crush and to swallow up the works of Satan and his herpetic co-workers. From the stichera on “Lord, I call…” for today’s vespers service we read:

Rejoice, O life-bearing Cross, the unconquerable triumph of true worship, O door of paradise, the confirmation of believers, the wall of the Church, through which corruption hath disappeared and perished, and the power of death was swallowed, and we ascend from earth to heaven, thou incontestable weapon and adversary of Satan….

Brothers and sisters, let us, as the new Israel, never divert our gaze during this Lenten season from the Cross. Let us focus on it as our only hope and cure for our sinful nature poisoned by the bites of the enemy. Looking faithfully to the Cross as the instrument of our salvation, let us, with thanksgivings and psalms and spiritual hymns rejoice in the promise of the salvation that comes only from Him who is the Great Serpent of Salvation. Glory to Jesus Christ!

last updated:Sunday, 22-Apr-2007 19:54:36 EDT

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