When bad things happen
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“Don’t you know that he is risen?” My protestant friend seemed mystified at the crucifix, a standard cross complete with the corpus (body) of Christ. “I worship the resurrected Lord!”
It’s a frustrating statement, implying that I, as a Catholic, do not worship Jesus resurrected but only Jesus suffering. Ludicrous. I decided to respond in a way in keeping with his belief in “the Bible alone”...Sola Scriptura.
“Do you have your bible handy?” I asked my friend? “Turn to Numbers 21:6-9.” The passage reflects a story from the Israelites journey through the dessert. They were complaining about God to Moses because of their struggles. The Lord heard their complaints. We read:
6 So the LORD sent among the people seraph* serpents, which bite the people so that many of the Israelites died.
7 Then the people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned in complaining against the LORD and you. Pray to the LORD to take the serpents from us.” So Moses prayed for the people,
8 and the LORD said to Moses: Make a seraph and mount it on a pole, and everyone who has been bitten will look at it and recover.*
9 Accordingly Moses made a bronze serpent* and mounted it on a pole, and whenever the serpent bit someone, the person looked at the bronze serpent and recovered.
“So,” I asked my friend, “what did God tell Moses to do?”
“Make a sculpture of a serpent, put it on the end of a staff, and raise it up so people can see it and be saved,” he replied.
“Do you think it would have worked if Moses decided not to out the serpent on the staff, and just walked around with the staff?” I asked.
“Probably not,” my friend said. “That wouldn’t follow God’s command as worded.”
“Indeed. Let’s skip ahead now to the Gospel of John 3:14-15.” Together, we read:
14 And just as Moses lifted up* the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up,
15 * so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.”
“So,” I asked, “what is this referencing?”
My friend didn’t hesitate: “obviously that Jesus had to be raised on the cross. But it doesn’t say he had to stay there! He is risen! And all I have to do to have eternal life is to believe!”
“Think back to Numbers: What did the Israelites community in the desert have to do to demonstrate their belief in God? They had to look on the serpent on the staff. You said yourself that the staff, without the serpent, would have done nothing...so why does your cross, without Jesus, mean anything?”
Of course, I didn’t convince my friend that the corpus belongs on the cross. But, it helps me to know that we follow ancient biblical tradition in some of the most basic aspects of our faith.
Jesus, by your cross and resurrection, you have redeemed the whole world.
The author is an attorney who lives in the Midwest with his wife and children. A cradle-Catholic, he left the Church as a young adult, but came back to the fold and now fully lives his faith.
The author chose this pseudonym as a way to describe his writing, which he hopes will guide him in all his articles, which will in turn lead others to God.
