Serpents and trees: Daily Mass Homily: Tuesday, April 8th, 2014

            The book of Numbers is one of those Old Testament books which is often overlooked.  Yet it contains several key events and themes in salvation history.

            Today we checked in with the complaining Israelites.  They had just witnessed the ten plagues, crossed the Red Sea on dry land, escaped from 400 years of bondage and watched God kicking butt against the Egyptians.  And now they complain: “We are disgusted with this wretched food!”  Have you ever said something like this about the GDR [St. Scholastica cafeteria]?  I know I did when I was a student here.  I’ve also caught myself opening my fridge whining, “There is nothing to eat!”  In either case, we often do the same as the Israelites—we, too complain.

            God doesn’t like complaints.  Please God, may we never be killed by serpents for doing so!  But this, the first important lesson from this passage in Numbers, remains true today: we should never complain.

            Second, it is cool to note how the very thing that killed the Israelites was transformed to be their salvation.  They were killed by serpents on the ground.  Now a bronze serpent is raised so that anyone who looked at it would be saved.

            Finally, the serpents—both of destruction and salvation—remind us of a tree.  The first tree, which led to sin and death, was in the Garden of Eden.  Yet this same tree, raised with Christ’s body, brought us redemption on Calvary.

            This section of Numbers is packed with meaning.  May we learn from this reading, first by being diligent against whining, and by rejecting the tree of selfishness by focusing on the tree of life: the cross.