Serpentine Jesus

The thing I love about the Bible is that it tells several stories that all end up telling the same macro-narrative of Jesus.

  Genesis-Revelation tells the story of a lost, fallen humanity and their need of a Savior.  These books also tell of the rescuer: Jesus and how he from the beginning was meant to come and rescue the world.

  The book of Numbers gives a great glimpse of what I'm talking about:

From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom. And the people became impatient on the way. And 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 loathe this worthless food."  Then the LORD sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died.  And the people came to Moses and said, "We have sinned, for we have spoken against the LORD and against you. Pray to the LORD, that he take away the serpents from us." So Moses prayed for the people. And the LORD said to Moses, "Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live." So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live. (Numbers 21:4-9 ESV)

  Many people at first glance would look at this story and not think much of it.  In fact I myself didn't think much of it for many years (except maybe that this story is where we get the symbol for healthcare seen right side below )

  This story is in fact also a precursor to what would happen to Jesus.  He would be raised up on a cross and all who look to Him will recieve Salvation. He says so in His conversation with a rich Jewish leader named Niccodemus: "And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up." (John 3:14 ESV)

  God's narrative in the Bible is amazing to behold.  Seeing the familiar patterns and the arrows pointing over and over again to Jesus are staggering.  No one, and I mean now one could have imagined the sheer depth of detail that God went through to point to Jesus.

  Let's look at a few other details in the Old Testament that can easily be seen as pointing to Jesus:

1. The Passover

2. The Sacrificial System

3.  The Suffering Servant from Isaiah 53

4. Numerous Psalms all describing a coming savior who wouldn't see death

5. The Prophecies that Christ fulfilled

  Literally I could go on and on and I know I didn't even add in all the the "most important" arrows pointing to Christ.  My simple point in this simple post is that Christ is the center of the Bible.  God is the main Character and he desired to make known Himself in the manifest body of Christ, thus the Son was thrust into the shining light of the whole Bible.

  Jesus said: "Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, 'Show us the Father'?" (John 14:9 ESV)

  Seeing Him is Seeing the Father.  Seeing Him is Seeing the Holy Spirit.  In Jesus we see the mainifestation of God to His people, loving them to DEATH...literally.

  He has brought about healing for our souls from the cross, for when we look upon the Raised up Christ he heals our souls and when we gaze upon the ressurected Christ we see our Salvation.

  It's pretty cool looking at the Scriptures through the lens of Jesus because when  you do the more "hidden Jesus code" you find and the more the Scriptures POP with awesome strength!

  The whole Bible tells the story of Jesus, when we connect to the Bible, we connect to Jesus, who is in fact God.  God's story is His Story, revealing to us who He is and how it is we can know Him better...which allows us to know ourselves better in turn.