Three hundred years before the birth of Jesus, a god named Asclepius was also born of a divine Father and a human mother and was raised by a half human, half horse centaur named Chiron.
Now Chiron was very skillful in the art of medicine and he taught Asclepius all he knew.
As Asclepius gained more wisdom he soon had nothing left to learn from his teacher.
One day a snake came to him while he was studying and began to whisper knowledge in his ear.
With the help of this snake Asclepius finally surpassed his teacher in skill and knowledge.
The same snake thattaughtAsclepius about healing and medicine wrapped itself around his walking stick and went with him wherever he would go.
Today medical associations like the Canadian Association of Physician Assistants, Blue Cross Blue Shield and The Canadian Medical Association still use the Rod of Asclepius, the snake wrapped around a pole or rod as a symbol of their healing knowledge.
Of course as Christians we trace the symbol of the snake wrapped around a pole much farther back than the Rod of Asclepius.
At least 500 years before Asclepius was born and became the Greek god of healing and medicine the Israelites found themselves wandering around in the wilderness.
They’d just been freed from slavery in Egypt and were on their way to a new land.
Unfortunately all they could do was think back to the “good old days” when they were slaves in Egypt.
Sure they’d worked hard and had no freedom but at least they didn’t have to eat the horrible gruel that God served up everyday out in the desert.
They simply could not trust that God was guiding them and that they’d eventually get to where they needed to go.
And so like any child on a trip with their parent they begin to ask “Are we there yet, are we there yet, are we there yet?”
As patient as God is this scenario finally reaches it’s breaking point.
“I’ll give you something to complain about,” God yells into the back seat and suddenly there are poisonous snakes creeping into the camp and biting everyone.
The Israelites mistrust of God leads them down a more difficult and dangerous path.
Of course the one they were just blaming for not serving up a better menu on the trip is the one they immediately turn to when an actual problem arises.
And so in his mercy God gives Moses a set of instructions, which involves putting up a brass snake on a pole and getting them to look at it.
The biting doesn’t stop but now they have something to heal the bites whenever they look at it.
Problem solved and the symbol that is later woven into Greek mythology, the Rod of Asclepius, is born.
Jesus uses the same image of the Israelites looking at the bronze snake on a rod for healing as he talks about himself being lifted up on the cross.
Like the Israelites looking at the bronze serpent on a stick and being healed we are to look to Jesus on the cross for our own healing.
Zoom forward to our time and while the symbol of the snake on the rod is still here as a symbol of healing, where we look for healing has changed significantly.
We’re no longer looking at bronze statues or Greek gods for healing.
Instead we’ve turned our attention to science and the way it works through the medical system and for good reason.
Who here hasn’t been healed in some way by a cast on the leg or antibiotics for an infection or received sight by wearing glasses?
The medical system is the bronze snake on a rod, the Rod of Asclepius of our time.
We look to it and it heals us.
Well most of the time.
There are those times when we look to our Rod of Asclepius and nothing happens.
In those time we do one of two things or even both.
First we get angry and blame the doctors, nurses or whoever represents this healing system.
Watching Grey’s Anatomy on Netflix you really see the ways in which people react when the doctors fail.
It’s a real window into the amount of trust that we put in these fallible human beings.
We trust the doctors and medical system so much, we put so much faith in them, that when they can’t do what we expect of them or heaven forbid make a mistake, we’re surprised, shocked and even angered.
Once the blaming stops we look somewhere else, anywhere else, trying to find a cure for whatever threatens us, whatever is slowly eating away at us.
Hope diminishes as the realization that wholeness and healing is not possible.
All we can do is manage the disease and all that comes with it.
In other words the snakes keep biting us and all we can do is find temporary relief until the next one sneaks up on us.
Sure we can make sure we’re diligently paying attention to the snakes around us and in this way avoid some of them but eventually no matter how careful we are we will get bitten.
And the more we get bitten the more we realize that the bronze snake on a rod, the medical system, is only ever temporary fixes.
It’s all it can be.
Whether our cancer is healed or not, whether the reason for our deteriorating health is identified or not, the next thing will eventually come.
We are broken people in a broken world.
Our bodies are broken in so many ways.
No medical system can offer true healing and wholeness; it can only offer temporary relief from the brokenness that invades our bodies.
Much like the faith we put in the medical system, the Israelites put to much faith in the bronze serpent.
Several hundred years after the snake incident in the desert, when Israel has finally reached its destination, they’ve made the bronze snake into an idol.
In the book of second Kings, Hezekiah breaks into pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the people of Israel had made offerings to it; it was called Nehushtan.
They not only looked to it for healing but began to treat it like God.
Often the things that we look to for healing, the things originally created by God, become idols.
Do we do this with our own medical system?
Looking to places like the Mayo Clinic, new drugs that are coming out, experimental medicine or our new cancer clinic here in Prince George.
If only we find the right bronze snake to look at we will be healed.
Perhaps this is why Jesus takes the image of the bronze serpent and applies it to his own crucifixion.
Jesus replaces the bronze serpent on the pole as he’s hung on the cross.
Jesus over shadows the idol.
Suddenly a faith that does not disappoint is born.
We all know that the snakes keep biting but how often do we find ourselves looking everywhere else but to Jesus for healing.
I don’t mean that we should stop taking our medication in hopes that Jesus will miraculously heal us but rather where do we look first?
The fact is we spend most of our time looking at bronze snakes on poles, looking to idols for our own healing rather than to the one who can give us healing in all circumstances, healing that goes beyond our physical.
Jesus often finds us wandering around the wilderness, complaining and looking in all the wrong places.
And in those places we get bitten.
But when we aren’t looking to the one who will save us, heal us, mend our broken lives, when we fail to look up to Jesus, we aren’t left to die.
Despite our unwillingness to look up to God, God decides to look down on us and not only look down on us but come down to us.
We cannot get t God but God can come down to us and does.
The one who is lifted up for our healing and wholeness, Jesus, is the same one who comes down to us when we no longer have the strength to look up.
For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God.
Amen.
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