Brave

Israel was in slavery in Egypt. They lived under the heavy hand of tyrants. Life was oppressive. Life was miserable. How bad was it? Israel’s firstborn sons were being routinely butchered at birth as a matter of government policy.

As a picture of the human heart, Egypt was the city of man. Egypt was the tyrant without that reminded you of the tyrant within. The lust, idolatry and pride of Egypt was an echo of the lust, idolatry and pride of sin that lies in the heart of every man.

It was not long after God had liberated His people from Egypt’s tyranny that Israel started to complain and wish they were back in Egypt. Better the devil you know, right? Like many Christians, they thought that liberation from Egypt would mean paradise. That’s true enough. But first, it would mean wandering through the desert.

Nobody likes to wander. Pharoah may have been a cruel father, but at least you had a father. This is true of us in all kinds of ways. I remember reading years ago of a study of those who had recovered suddenly from long-term cancer through alternative health treatments. A good percentage of them fell into depression and later took their own lives. Why?

The researchers concluded that in gaining their health they had lost a host of secondary benefits. Sympathy, attention, idleness, etc.

Like the wife of a cruel husband, Israel had learned to love its jailer. In Egypt, at least you had food security. Life was miserable, but at least you had a point of orientation. You had routine, you had predictability. But the moment God set Israel free from her prison, life became, not less frightening, but more frightening. Life became riskier. When the prison doors came down, the fear and anxiety went up.

And so, Israel complained against Moses. It complained against God. And God sent fiery serpents into their camp, and many died.

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. (Numbers 21:5-6)

This brings Israel to her senses. She confesses her sin and asks Moses to speak to God and get Him to call off the snakes.

But God did not. Instead, He has Moses make a pole and attach a bronze serpent to it. The pole is put out into the open field where anyone can see it. If you were bitten and you looked at the pole, you lived. If you didn’t look, you died.

Picture the scene. There are serpents outside your tent. People are dying. You have to go out and get food, water and fuel for your fire. But the risk is high. The mood around camp must have been terrifying with everyone too scared to move an inch lest they get bitten and die.

God could have called off the snakes. He could have made Israel safe. But He didn’t. Instead, He makes them brave. He calls them to face the thing that terrifies them most. He calls them to look at the horror of horrors, and live.

In the face of uncertainty, Israel longed for the safety they had as slaves in Egypt (Exodus 16:3). But the world is simply not a safe place. As Helen Keller once said,

Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. The fearful are caught as often as the bold. Faith alone defends. Helen Keller

In this life, you can aim for safety, or you can aim for freedom, but you can’t have both.

We are often not prepared for this. We expect rainbows and lollypops when we come to Christ. Instead, we find ourselves in the desert with snakes. Why?

Because God wants us to be free and freedom is not found in a padded cell. Freedom comes through the courage to face those things that terrify us most.

What would happen to you if you faced that thing in your life that terrifies or shames you most? What would happen to you if you confronted and confessed the sin in your own heart, and in your own neighbourhood?

At the beginning of His ministry, Jesus heads into the desert. Why? To face this world’s horror of horrors—that old serpent, the devil. And on the cross, where Jesus likens His own death for us to Moses’ serpent on a pole, Jesus defeats that horror.

…And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up… (John 3:14)

You and I are called to face this cross, where our worst, sinful horrors have been crucified and defeated. At that cross, you and I are called to face our greatest fear: That God is real, that He is good, and that we are not.

And when you face that, you have nothing left to fear. When you have faced the truth about your own sin, and God’s terrifying solution in the death of Christ on a cross… you have nothing left to face. Fear is gone and you are now free to face anything.

We know this to be true in our own experience. People do not overcome their fears by shutting out the real world but by gradual exposure to it. This is all part of our sanctification.

Welcome to the desert.

The cross of Christ is God’s invitation to face the horror. Is it risky? Yes. But God calls us to accept the risk necessary to defeat it. To look life in the face; the face of Jesus Christ.

Is it safe? No. Might I suffer? Yes. But, better to be brave than safe. Better to look and live. Better to get on with living, than to cower in a corner, leaning on the chariots of Egypt (Isaiah 31:1).