The hour draws near when the Son of Man is to be ‘lifted up’, that is to say, to be nailed to the wood of the cross. This hour has already been announced by Jesus, who had previously declared, ‘Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up’ (John 3:14).

The story of Moses, who ordered the people to erect a bronze serpent so that they might be saved from the bite of the fiery serpents, is a fascinating one. These serpents are death incarnate, the consequence of sin. God could have made them go away, but he did not. The Israelites were not saved from being bitten but rather from the consequence of the bite.

We struggle with sin; it is in our nature. We pray, ‘Lord, take this sin out of my life’; yet often this prayer goes unanswered. Often, even as we hate our sin, there is a part of us that remains in rebellion, still in love with our sin, and so in need of further conversion. Part of us still longs for the ‘flesh pots’ of Egypt; part of us is willing to endure slavery to satisfy our base desires.

Sometimes, God allows us to feel the bite of our sin so that we may recognise the source of our salvation. ‘When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will realise that I am He’ (John 8:8).

The wages of sin are death (Romans 6:23), but Jesus pays the price. We hold the death of the Lord before our eyes, aware that we, too, must embrace the cross. Here, the sign of our downfall is the very means of our salvation, not from death but through it.

by Fr Michael Grace