Story Part Four

This is the fourth and final installment of a story I wrote based on Numbers 21:4-9

My entire body explodes in pain. The snake’s fangs latch into my back. I scream and claw at my back, desperate to get the creature off. It hisses at me as I fling it away. Only now do I understand the pain of the serpents’ victims. My back feels like burning coals have been spread over it. I can feel the venom racing through my body, like lava in my veins. I scream again. This is what the wrath of Yahweh feels like. I think dimly.
Then a pair of strong hands lift me up and turn me over. Something is placed on my back and I felt the pain diminish slightly. I am laid on my back again and something is brought to my lips, “Drink this, Lydie. It’ll hold you over.” I find myself looking into a woman’s seamed face. I recognize her, she sometimes camps next to our tent.
“Until what?”
“A group of our people have gone to Moses to beg for Yahweh’s forgiveness. Maybe the Lord will remove the curse.”
Moses steps into view holding something. It is a serpent, made of bronze. Through a haze of pain I watch as he mounts it on a pole about 10 feet high.
“People of Israel!” he cries, “You have sinned against the Lord, yet he has chosen to extend his grace. Look at this serpent. If you raise your eyes to it Jehovah has promised that you will live.”
All around us people are following Moses’ advice.
“It’s working, my fever is going down!”
“Anna’s breathing easier now.”
“She’s just stopped bleeding.”
“Look up, child.” The woman urges. But I’m not so sure. If Yahweh was so powerful why couldn’t he have cured them all without a word ? He wasn’t strong enough to save my father. I grind my teeth with the pain and draw another raspy breath. Could something so simple really be a cure? The screams all around me continue. The serpents are still biting.
“What could it hurt?” The old woman sooths, “All around you others are doing it, please child look up.” Could it work? Yahweh, are you there? My body continues to burn and I struggle to breathe. “The sun is rising child, lift your face. Yahweh is good, He has promised he will never left me. He has sealed his promise in the form of this serpent.

I open my eyes and lift my face to the serpent.

1,500 years later others would lift their faces to a man hanging from a cross. A man who had come to bring forever healing to everybody who would believe.


Well, I hoped you liked it. I wrote it in a few days based on part of one of my dad's sermons.