Numbers 21: 4-9 John 3: 14-21

Our perspective on the trials and tribulations of life can have a profound effect and how we formulate our understanding of God's character and our own place and purpose in God's creation. Melissa Florer-Bixler preaches on the long and arduous Exodus of the Jewish people from Egypt and how their focus on the harsh environment, dangers, and discomforts of the wilderness caused them to doubt the truth of God's love and divine plan for their rescue. God's response to their criticism wasn't to send snakes as a punishment but to let them go: to remove some of the many divine protections that had quietly always been in place. God's constant effort shielded God's people from sand storms, snakes, bandits, and had mapped out places to rest and drink. When the desert started biting with a vengeance and yet God also gave Moses a new means for salvation, the people suddenly realized a new perspective about how much of God's love and planning for them existed that they had never perceived. Melissa asks us to consider this shift of perspective within our own lives as we think about Easter, the crucifixion, and why God sent his son in the flesh to die for us. Did Christ come just to fix the giant wilderness we have made of this Eden, and that God is set in wroth against his rebellious creation unless they bend the knee? Or...has God, from before the beginning, cared for, loved, shielded, and planned for our existence in a harsh wilderness and the death of God's son came as a demonstration that God would rather, more than anything, be with us than without us?