The Son of Man Must Be Lifted Up: Reflections on the readings for the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross

Numbers 21:4b-9
Psalm 78
Philippians 2:6-11
John 3:13-17

The caduceus is a medical symbol of a staff with two snakes and wings. However, its origin is in today’s first reading when God directed Moses to make a bronze serpent to heal the complaining Israelites who asked for forgiveness. The Greeks adapted it for Ascelpius, the god of healing.

As we read so often during the Exodus, the Israelites were very impatient and complained a lot to the point where God called them a “stiff-necked people.” At one point, as we see in today’s reading, God sent serpents among them to teach them a lesson. As often happened during the Exodus, when confronted with God’s displeasure, the Israelites urged Moses to pray to God to relieve them from this danger which had already taken the lives of many of them. Note that Moses, who is a typology of Jesus (Deuteronomy 18:15), is asked to intercede before God for the Israelites just as Jesus is the intercessor before God for us.

God told Moses to make a bronze serpent and mount it on a pole so that those who were bitten would be healed when they looked upon it. The Israelites even carried it around with them until the reign of Hezekiah (who was one of the good kings of Judah), who “smashed the bronze serpent Moses had made, because up to that time the Israelites were burning incense to it. (It was called Nehushtan.)” (2 Kings 18:4)

This is a form of typology as it refers to something taking place at the time as well as something to happen in the future. It is a precursor to Jesus, who heals us from our sins, being raised on the Cross. Jesus even refers to this incident in today’s gospel. One of the lessons from this reading is that God wants us to call upon Him when we are troubled. Jesus tells us without Him we can do nothing (John 15:5). We need God, although many of us refuse to believe so. C.S. Lewis explains why God sends us tribulations: “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” (C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain)

The responsorial psalm presents a theme that we see throughout the Exodus and beyond, as the Israelites had to be constantly reminded about what the Lord had done for them, first by Moses, and then by the prophets. The refrain is the admonishment directed at them and also to us: “Do not forget the works of the Lord.” The psalmist notes that they gave God lip-service but did not really obey Him: “their hearts were not steadfast toward him, nor were they faithful to his covenant.”

The psalmist reminds us of God’s mercy and that He “forgave their sin and destroyed them not; Often He turned back His anger ...” This leads us into the second reading where St. Paul tells the Philippians, in the chapter before today’s selection, “conduct yourselves in a way worthy of the gospel of Christ.” (Philippians 1:27)

In today’s reading Paul speaks of two contrasting ideas, the divinity of Christ and His humility. If you read the first few lines of this chapter, you find that St. Paul is exhorting us to emulate the humility of Jesus. The focal point of this is Jesus’ obedience, “becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.” The Romans were experts at execution and torture, and crucifixion was acknowledged as the ultimate example of both. It was so terrible that Roman citizens could not be sentenced to crucifixion, much like our constitutional provision against cruel and unusual punishment. Not only was it designed to be painful, prolonged, and torturous, it was also humiliating. Think about some of the descriptions mentioned during the Stations of the Cross. And being forced to carry His Cross is akin to having the condemned dig their own graves.

And yet, Jesus willingly accepted this ignominious death for our sake. As a result God exalted Him such “that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” Notice the mention of those “under the earth.” This is part of the power of the Name of Jesus, and it is invoked against the demons in all exorcisms.

The gospel reading takes us back to the bronze serpent of the first reading. Nicodemus, a pharisee who was a secret follower of Jesus, had come to Him at night. He has questions for Jesus because he realizes that, in order to do the things he had seen Jesus do, Jesus had to have come from God. Jesus remarks that Nicodemus should have known some of these things, being a pharisee and teacher, and therefore should have known Jewish history and the prophesies of Scripture. Jesus notes that He is not believed even when speaking of earthly things, and thus it will be difficult or impossible for people to believe heavenly things.

Possibly alluding to heaven being closed since the fall of Adam, Jesus says, “No one has gone up to heaven except the one who has come down from heaven, the Son of Man.” Then He refers to His mission as Savior by pointing to the incident of the bronze serpent from the first reading. Just as the bronze serpent was a focal point for healing the snake-bitten Israelites, so Jesus is the focal point for the healing of the sins of the world. The Ignatius Catholic Study Bible explains that “Jesus sees this relic as an image of His own crucifixion and the healing it will bring to a rebellious world.”

Jesus then explains His salvific mission to Nicodemus, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.”

Similarly, when the Host and the Chalice are lifted up during the Consecration at the Mass, we are called not only to look on Him whom they have sacrificed but to reaffirm our belief in Him so that we might have eternal life.

Bishop Sheen explains this encounter with Nicodemus as follows: “To Nicodemus, He affirmed that the condition on which man’s salvation depended would be His own Passion and death. He made this clear by referring to the most famous foreshadowing of the Cross in the Old Testament.

‘And the Son of Man must be lifted up, as the serpent was lifted up by Moses in the wilderness; so that those who believe in Him may not perish. But have eternal life.’

“As the brass serpent had the appearance of a serpent and yet lacked its venom, so too, when He would be lifted up upon the bars of the Cross, He would have the appearance of a sinner and yet be without sin. As all who looked upon the brass serpent had been healed of the bite of the serpent, so all who looked upon Him with love and faith would be healed of the bite of the serpent of evil.” (Bishop Fulton Sheen, Life of Christ)

The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC, article 115) talks about the many senses of reading scripture; “According to an ancient tradition, one can distinguish between two senses of Scripture: the literal and the spiritual, the latter being subdivided into the allegorical, moral, and anagogical senses.” The story of Jesus and the bronze serpent can be seen in the allegorical sense. It can be seen as the future victory of Jesus over sin and evil on the Cross of Salvation. It is also a classic example of the relationship between the Old and New Testaments: “As an old saying put it, the New Testament lies hidden in the Old and the Old Testament is revealed in the New.” (CCC 129)