I love reading - I have always found joy in the new worlds I can encounter in the pages of a book. When I was a little kid, my parents put me into organized sports because they were worried I would spend all my time reading instead of playing outside or making new friends. However, it was through books that I found my people. I started my first book club in fifth grade; we would read a book, create a themed snack and craft, and chat about our favorite characters and parts of the story. I remember reading “A Wrinkle in Time” and feeling the magic in the words.

Years later, when I began teaching, my principal asked me to take over the Scripture course. This terrified me! As a good Catholic girl, I was not very familiar with Scripture and felt underprepared to be the one sharing it with my students. I quickly overcame this fear as I studied how best to approach the subject of Scripture; turns out the Word of God is a library filled with every genre under the sun, written for particular people at certain times. In my ten years of teaching Scripture to high school students, I grew to absolutely love the Bible and the stories of God and God’s people within it.

However, there are parts of the Bible I really struggle with - mainly those in the Old Testament in which God inflicts violence and punishment upon the Israelites and their neighbors. To read in context can be helpful, understanding the time and place they were written, the audience who initially would have listened to them, and the deeper messages we might find in them. Often, the harsh and disturbing stories in the Old Testament bring up age-old questions, “Why does God allow people to suffer? Is God the cause of suffering? Do we suffer because we are being punished for our sins? For the sins of our parents?” Though there are many people who believe the answer to these questions is simple, I believe today’s readings point us in a different direction.

As a Scripture teacher, my first step is to examine the story as part of a whole. The first reading recounts the Israelites' complaints after wandering in the desert for decades. They are tired, hungry, and clearly fed up with the conditions in which they are living. They left an oppressive situation under the impression that their liberation was imminent, and yet forty years later, they had barely made it to the Promised Land.

Not only that, but they clearly had expectations that did not meet the reality they were facing. The reading tells us that God sent poisonous snakes - specifically saraph serpents, with saraph meaning “burning” or “fiery” - as a punishment for their complaints and as a result, many Israelites died. Personally, I am not sure this punishment is just, as it seems like an overreaction to some whiny followers. My confusion rears its head here, and I struggle to justify how the loving, nurturing God I know could allow people to die simply for voicing complaints about tough conditions. I, too, would have been complaining in such a situation.

The story doesn’t end there - this passage goes on to explain the solution to the problem. God instructs Moses to create a saraph serpent out of bronze, mount it on his staff, and hoist it up above the people. Those who looked upon the snake were healed and lived. While this miracle is wondrous and demonstrates the mighty power of God, it does not change the suffering that was felt by  the Israelites. If this is all we read, we surely leave the passage scratching our heads and crying out, “Why, God, why?”

The Book of Numbers is not necessarily meant to be taken as a warning to us today, although it might have been at the time it was written down. Individual stories in the Bible send particular messages, but we must remember that the Bible is also read as a whole library of books with interwoven stories. What we read in the Old Testament sets us up for the New Testament and what we read in the New Testament sheds light on the Old Testament. When readings are paired together for Sunday or for feast days, it is usually because they share some theme or deeper meaning.

For today’s feast, the Exaltation of the Cross, we might have a better understanding of the first reading if we also consider the Gospel alongside it. Here, we see the interplay of a challenging story of a vengeful God and the triumph of Christ on the cross recalled in John’s Gospel. While both stories present immense suffering, they also point to the restorative nature of God.

The evangelist John divides his Gospel into two books: the Book of Signs and the Book of Glory. The Book of Signs recounts seven miracles performed by Christ during his ministry. The Book of Glory explores the victory of Jesus over sin in his Passion, Death, and Resurrection. The names for these two parts of the Gospel are significant in that they tell us how John interprets the events of Jesus’ life. The miracles are signs that Jesus is indeed God. And the Paschal Mystery is a glorious triumph over death and all that leads us away from God. The first reading story of the Israelites looking upon the snake to be healed can be seen as a sign and foreshadowing of Jesus on the Cross, which he reveals in a passing conversation in today’s Gospel.

The Gospel shows Jesus proclaiming that “just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life” long before his trial and execution. While the first reading is troubling, the image of Christ on the Cross illuminates what would otherwise be the end of a horrible story. Jesus uses this very story to show that God brings healing to those who are in need.

In Christ’s explanation, those in need of healing are those poisoned by sin, temptation, and darkness. Jesus is the antidote, the one hoisted up above the crowd. We need only look upon him to be healed, to be saved. Jesus knows this is his reality and shares that it is part of God’s plan of love - “For God so loved the world that God gave God’s only Son, so that everyone who believes in God might not perish but might have eternal life.” As a child, this was one of the only passages of the Bible I had memorized, a tribute to how valuable its message is.

If we focus on the punishment, on the pain, on the poison, we might miss the miracle that is happening. When we read these two stories together, we become more aware of the sacrifice made by God to bring us into God’s vision for salvation. I often find myself wandering in the desert, separated from what I know and love, complaining about conditions that feel preventable.

I can’t overcome the difficulty and struggle on my own. I need assistance in order to reconcile the pain in my life, I need something bigger than myself to look upon and find hope. Reading about others who went through more profound suffering often inspires such hope and healing; if these everyday people we find scattered throughout Scripture were able to place their trust and burden in God, maybe I can too.

Jesus’ life, ministry, and death provide a powerful remedy to suffering and offer new life. Just as a snake sheds its skin in order to grow, the death of Jesus on the cross opens us up to the renewal, rebirth, and resurrection of our own hearts and souls. Reading these stories together as a tapestry woven to reveal a complete picture of love and sacrifice, one found throughout the whole Word of God. For God so loved the world that God’s self became man, lived through human emotions and challenges, demonstrated that love in an active way, was wrongfully accused of crimes and put to death, and rose from the dead to show us not only what God is capable of, but also what humans can achieve when they put their love and faith in God.

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