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Smashing Snakes
Keeping Our Worship From Becoming Our Idol

by Cadet Jonathan Taube

  

When exploring the subject of worship, the Old Testament provides a wealth of material for consideration. Far from being irrelevant because of the advent of Jesus as Messiah, the Old Testament's teaching on worship is critical for truly understanding the relationship between humankind and the one true God, Yahweh. The Old Testament relates, in large part, the history of the people and nation of Israel, and Israel's history is important to Christians today because their story is our story.

 

Israel is God's chosen people, and all of us who believe in Jesus the Christ have been adopted into their inheritance, as God's people called out from all the worldly kingdoms we were born into. We've sworn our allegiance to God's Kingdom, and this is meaningful because it impacts every aspect of our life as the Holy Spirit enters us and remakes us into the people God intended us to be all along. The struggles we each face to faithfully live our lives in a way that brings glory to God mirrors much of the story of Israel (which literally means "struggles with God”).

 

The Bronze Snake

 

Though Numbers is an often skipped-over book (due to its abundance of census data and collection of seemingly random, archaic laws) it actually has a lot to offer. It provides a window into the period directly after the Israelites were rescued from Egypt. By the time we pick up the story in chapter 21, the newly christened nation of Israel has already witnessed the Lord's power and providence in so many ways, as he has continually responded to their near constant complaining by miraculously meeting their every need. However, they continue to rebel and grumble against God and against Moses until, in an act of righteous judgment, God causes venomous snakes to run amuck throughout camp. As many Israelites begin to die from the snake bites, the people repent and cry out for mercy.

 

A really strange thing happens next: though the people ask God to take away the snakes, he instead instructs Moses to make a snake out of bronze, and to lift it up so it is visible everywhere in the camp. The poisonous snakes don't immediately stop terrorizing the people, yet anyone bitten who looks at the bronze snake lives. This giant snake, lifted high in the air over all the people, sits above them as a constant reminder of their rebellion and their need for the care, love, and protection of God. Even as the snakes strike at their heels.

 

Smashing Snakes

 

Fast forward a few dozen generations and we find that though the Israelites have indeed inherited the Promised Land, king after king has abandoned the Lord and led the people astray to idol worship. 2 Kings 18 opens on the reign of Hezekiah, one of the last good kings of Judah before the fall of Jerusalem and the exile to Babylon. In verse 3 we read something shocking, “[Hezekiah] did what was right in the eyes of the LORD, just as his father David had done. He removed the high places, smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles. He broke into pieces the bronze snake Moses had made, for up to that time the Israelites had been burning incense to it."

 

The same bronze snake Moses made in Numbers had been kept for so many generations, and was intended to serve as a reminder of the Lord's judgment, and of his mercy and his goodness––yet somehow it had become an idol. Isn't that astounding? This should serve as a wake up call to all of us. We worship an amazing God, who is even greater and more wonderful than we can truly grasp; we should remain resolute in our commitment to worship him for who he is, not getting distracted by our preferences or rituals and only worshiping ourselves in the process.

 

What we need to understand and admit to ourselves is that whenever we allow a format or a tradition to become foundational to our worship, we haven't only built a distraction, we have built an idol. It’s then time to smash stuff, because worshipping God can’t be limited by our misguided efforts. Worship isn’t about the "how," it's about the "who." It's not about the action, it's about the attitude. So unless we are completely humbled before God and submitted to his will, letting go of everything else in the process, we aren't truly worshiping.

 

Lifting Up Jesus

 

The foundation of our worship is God himself, and him alone. Jesus, knowing full well what had transpired with the bronze snake under King Hezekiah, spoke about the true purpose of rituals and traditions in worship. In John 3:14-15 he says, "Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him." Jesus perfectly fulfilled the purpose the snake was meant to, because he was the perfect image of his father.

 

Jesus himself is the greatest reminder, symbol, or expression of the character and nature of God. Everything we do and say, and all the rituals or traditions we embrace must point to him and bring him glory. In John 14:9, Jesus says, "Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work."

 

To be Spirit and Truth worshippers, our focus must be Jesus, and our goal must be lifting him up so that our world can see how wonderful he is. That means embracing the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives to remake us into his image, and living out a life of submission to the will of God. Building our worship upon the foundation of Jesus Christ will bring God his rightfully deserved glory and will keep us from the dangers and emptiness of idolatry.

 

 

  

 

 

   

 

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