It’s a strange business, this bronze serpent. It seems to directly contradict the command to make no graven images. But the command was never about making no sacred art. It was about worshiping an image as a depiction of God. “You shall not bow down to them or serve them,” says the commandment [Deut. 5:7].

What distinguished Israelite worship from the pagans was not a lack of imagery, but the confession of YHWH as not being resembled by any animal or object in creation. He is not likened to a bull, or a reptile, or the sun or moon. His representative, his icon, his image in the tabernacle was a man, the high priest. Through this living man God spoke to His people.

Images were present in the tabernacle, at God’s command. The ark of the covenant had golden cherubim, whose wings covered the mercy seat. Engravers and carvers were hired for the preparation of the golden vessels, candelabra, embroidered hangings. In the tabernacle was a bronze sea, held up by twelve oxen made of bronze. Animals and vines with grape clusters were in the second temple, by men who severely and most strictly interpreted the law. It was not the image that was outlawed, but the worship of the image as YHWH. The men who spoke for YHWH were adorned in elaborate vestments rich in symbolic meaning.

Standing out in all of this was the erection of a cross on which hung a serpent of bronze. The rebels in tonight’s first reading were instructed, “Look at this, and you will live.” Were sacred properties infused into this cross with the statue of the cursed serpent? Certainly not. What happened was that God attached His word of promise there. It was not that medicine was transmitted by rays of light into the eyeballs of the repentant rebels. Now, their eyes saw what the Word said. This action of looking was really an action of hearing and believing. …