Just Look and Live
When anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, he lived.
Numbers 21:9 (NIV)
Bitten by venomous snakes in the desert, the Israelites received a strange order from God: Moses lifted a bronze snake on a pole, and whoever looked at it lived. No medicine, no elaborate ritual, no pilgrimage — just looking. The cure lay not in the strength of the gazer but in the object of the gaze. Simple faith, extraordinary result.
Jesus explained this story's meaning: as Moses lifted the snake, so the Son of Man would be lifted — on the cross — so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. The whole Gospel fits in that motion: look at Christ and live. And our relationships join in when we point one another to Jesus instead of to ourselves. The best friend is not the one who fixes everything; it is the one who points to the One who fixes.
If the “bite” hurts today — guilt, fear, addiction, anxiety — do the simplest and hardest thing: look. Look at the cross until peace returns. Then tell someone where you looked. Just look and live — and just point, to love. The gaze of faith never returns empty, for the cross never stops drawing.