He Crushed Its Head

I am finishing the book of Numbers in my regular Bible reading, and I just came to the passage where the Lord sent fiery snakes to punish the Israelites for their disobedience. It reminded me of one of my favorite passages from Russell Moore's book Tempted and Tried.

In my nightly Bible readings with my family, I read a selected narrative in the canon, but every night my children beg me to read "the one about the snake." For some reason they love to hear about Moses combating the fiery serpents in the wilderness with the bronze serpent on the pole and about the afflicted finding healing when they look on the emblem of the very curse that's killing them. My little boys don't simply have a morbid fascination with venomous snakes among the wandering Israelites. In fact, they are never satisfied to end the story there. 

They wait in silence until we turn to what they call "the other pole," the picture of the cross of Christ. That's when I tell them how mysteriously this seemingly helpless, executed man confronted the snake of Eden right there on "the other pole" and finally did what God had promised since the beginning of history. He crushed its head. 

Praise God that He did.