Village Shepherd

Present day icons tend to be stars — football stars, film stars, models and so on. Part of their attraction lies in their opulent and glamorous life-style, which many of us would love to emulate. So all the trappings which go with stars, the fast cars, the palatial houses with amazing furnishings, the yachts, the jewellry, the clothes and so forth, take on a fascination of their own. We are encouraged by advertisers who want us to buy their products, to aim for these accoutrements of the rich and famous. And when we've acquired them, we are presumed to have arrived and to therefore be happy.

Of course, we all know that this is far from the truth. But this knowledge doesn't always save us from a little mild envy of those who seem to have everything they want and to desire at least some material evidence of our own status in life, such as a comfortable home or a good car.

There's nothing wrong with having icons or our own material wealth, unless we start to worship either. Then the trouble starts, for such worship can be so insidious that we fail to notice it. We can fall off the God-path so easily and remain off it for years without ever really being aware that we've almost lost touch with God.

But we in our generation aren't alone in that. The Ancient Israelites quickly turned to other gods which they could both see and feel, and worshipped them. But their idolatry could be more subtle than that.

Moses seemed to have a thing with snakes. He certainly wasn't afraid of them. Right in the beginning of his ministry, when he asked the Pharaoh to release his Hebrew slaves, the Pharoah refused. Moses and God used strong measures to change the Pharoah's mind. Moses flung his staff onto the ground whereupon it changed into a snake. This would be quite sufficient to impress most of us, but not the Pharoah. He immediately sent for his court magicians who did exactly the same - flung their staffs onto the ground and changed them into snakes. But Moses' snake ate up all the other snakes, whereupon Moses caught hold of it by the tail and it returned to being a staff (Exodus 7:8-12).

Later, when the people were embarked upon their historic trek in the wilderness seeking out he Promised Land, we're told in today's reading from the book of Numbers that the people became impatient on the way. The people spoke against God and against Moses, "Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we detest this miserable food." They were referring to manna, which had been wonderful and refreshing and full of goodness when they were starving and God had first miraculously provided it, but which had lost its appeal after weeks and months of eating nothing else. It isn't difficult to sympathise with the people, for the diet must have been monotonous in the extreme.

But God is so angry at their complaints that he sent poisonous serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many Israelites died. It seems a harsh reaction from a God of love, but it certainly did the trick. There were no more complaints. Instead, a delegation approached Moses, professed their repentance and begged him to intervene on their behalf.

God immediately relented and set out to save the people once again, although it could be argued that if God hadn't sent the poisonous snakes in the first place, he wouldn't have needed to save the people from them. God instructed Moses to fashion a model of one of the snakes and put it on a staff which would be lifted up high. Anyone who was bitten but gazed upon the image, would live.

Moses did as he was told and to this day his symbol is a staff with a snake entwined around it.

This is also the symbol of the medical profession, but may not be because of Moses. Asclepius was the mythical ancient Greek god of healing and a famous physician, and is traditionally represented holding a staff with his sacred serpent coiled around it, symbolizing renewal of youth as the serpent casts off its skin. The similar symbol of a staff with two snakes and surmounted by wings, widely used by the medical profession is actually the caduceus or wand of Hermes, messenger of the gods and protector of merchants and thieves. This seems to have replaced the staff of Asclepius as a symbol for the medical profession, probably for aesthetic reasons because of the symmetry of the wand of Hermes. But despite the healing from the snake bites, not a lot to do with Moses, it seems.

Not surprisingly, when the Ancient Israelites realised the power within Moses' staff, they began to worship it. And this was more subtle than the worship of foreign gods, because they might well have thought they were worshipping the one, true God by gazing upon the staff of Moses. Much later, in the late 700s BCE, King Hezekiah, in his efforts to abolish idolatry, "smashed the bronze serpent which Moses had made" (2 Kings 18:4).

St John, in his gospel, uses the story of the bronze snake on a pole as a kind of apologetic for the crucifixion of Jesus. He says, "And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life." (John 3:14-15) Perhaps he is referring to God's saving act through Moses, relating it to God's saving act through Jesus and saying moreover that all must gaze upon Jesus to be healed of their "snake bites" and live. Since the original story of the fall of humanity regards the snake as the embodiment of evil, perhaps in this context we can regard sin as "snake bites".

Like the Ancient Israelites, as long as we repent and keep our eyes fixed upon Jesus, we are saved by God and given life. But if we once begin to worship a snake on a pole for all the wrong reasons, then we fall into idolatry. So let us thank God for his gifts to us and while we might enjoy our modern day icons and symbols, let us cease to envy them or to desire status symbols of our own.