16 March 2027 · Latin Rite
Open in the Daily Word appAlso: Syro-Malankara Rite · Syro-Malabar Rite · മലയാളം
“So Jesus said, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will realize that I am he, and that I do nothing on my own, but I speak these things as the Father instructed me.”” John 8:28
The people of Israel are on the long road around Edom, and they lose patience. They complain against God and against Moses: why did you bring us out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? “There is no food and no water, and we detest this miserable food.” The miserable food is the manna, the bread from heaven. Then poisonous serpents come among them, and many die. The people confess, “We have sinned,” and Moses prays for them. God's remedy is strange: “Make a poisonous serpent, and set it on a pole; and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live.” Moses makes a serpent of bronze, and whoever looks at it lives. The very image of what was killing them, lifted up, becomes the sign of healing. The book of Wisdom later explains that it was not the bronze that saved them but God, the Saviour of all (Wisdom 16:7), and King Hezekiah would one day break the bronze serpent because people had begun to burn incense to it (2 Kings 18:4). The sign points beyond itself. The Psalm is the cry of all who are dying in the desert: “Hear my prayer, O LORD; let my cry come to you,” and its confidence that the Lord looks down from heaven “to set free those who were doomed to die.”
Jesus himself gave us the key to this reading when he said to Nicodemus: “just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life” (John 3:14–15). In today's Gospel he speaks of the same lifting up: “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will realize that I am he.” In John's Gospel, to be lifted up means two things at once: to be raised on the cross and to be exalted in glory. “I am he” echoes the name God revealed to Moses at the burning bush, “I AM.” On the cross, where Jesus looks most powerless, his divine identity will be revealed. He who bears the poison of our sin is lifted up, and whoever looks to him in faith lives. Jesus also warns that those who refuse to believe “will die in your sins”; the remedy is offered, but it must be looked at. These days the crucifix in our churches may be veiled in purple. The veil teaches us to long for the moment on Good Friday when it will be uncovered and we will be invited: behold the wood of the Cross. Then we will look, and live.
Theme: “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will realize that I am he.”
From the serpent on the pole to the Son on the cross: look and live.
“The people spoke against God and against Moses, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we detest this miserable food.”” Numbers 21:5
“And do not complain as some of them did, and were destroyed by the destroyer.” 1 Corinthians 10:10
Apply: Turn every complaint today into a prayer of thanks or of trust.
“And the LORD said to Moses, “Make a poisonous serpent, and set it on a pole; and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live.”” Numbers 21:8
“And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.” John 3:14–15
Apply: Pray for five minutes before a crucifix each day of Holy Week.
“God said to Moses, “I am who I am.”” Exodus 3:14
“So Jesus said, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will realize that I am he, and that I do nothing on my own, but I speak these things as the Father instructed me.”” John 8:28
Apply: On Good Friday, come to venerate the Cross, and tell Jesus in your own words that you believe he is the Son of God.
God heals through what is lifted up before our eyes.
On the cross Jesus is revealed as the Son, and whoever looks to him in faith lives.
Take-home resolution: Look at the crucifix each day this week and pray: Jesus, you are he; heal me.
Dear friends, the people of Israel were tired of walking and tired of the manna. They said: we detest this miserable food (Numbers 21:5). The bread from heaven had become boring. Poisonous serpents came, and many died. Then they confessed: we have sinned.
God gave Moses a strange remedy: make a serpent of bronze and set it on a pole; whoever is bitten shall look at it and live (Numbers 21:8). The very image of what was killing them became the sign of healing, because God chose to heal through it.
Jesus told Nicodemus: just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up (John 3:14). And today he says: when you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will realize that I am he (John 8:28). On the cross Jesus takes the poison of our sin into himself. And there, where he seems weakest, he is revealed as I AM, the Son of God.
Our crosses may be veiled in purple this week. On Good Friday they will be uncovered and we will be invited to look and adore. Let us begin now: look at the crucifix, bring him our wounds, stop complaining and trust. Whoever looks to him in faith will live. Amen.
Children, when God's people were bitten by snakes, God told Moses to lift up a bronze snake on a pole. Whoever looked at it got better! Jesus was lifted up on the cross so that everyone who looks at him with love can be healed from sin. Look at a cross today and say: thank you, Jesus!
Lord Jesus, lifted up on the cross like the serpent in the desert, we look to you and live. Heal the poison of our sin, forgive our complaining, and teach us to trust the Father on the long road. Show us that you are he, the Son who always does what pleases the Father. Amen.
Today’s readings are joined by one verb: to lift up. Moses lifts a bronze serpent on a pole, and those who look at it live. Jesus says that when the Son of Man is lifted up, people will know who he is. As the Cross comes nearer, the Church sets beside it an old story about complaint, poison and healing. The key words are look, lifted up and I am.
Setting.
Israel is near the end of the desert years. Edom has refused them passage (20:14–21), so they must go the long way around it. Aaron has just died on Mount Hor (20:22–29). The people have been through this complaint before, but here they reject the food God himself has given. “This miserable food” is the manna.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“and we detest this miserable food.” (21:5)
The bread from heaven has become, for them, something to despise. Complaint can blind us to the gift in our hands.
“We have sinned by speaking against the Lord and against you; pray to the Lord to take away the serpents from us.” (21:7)
The first honest word in the passage. Those who spoke against Moses now ask for his prayer, and “Moses prayed for the people” without a word of reproach.
“and whenever a serpent bit someone, that person would look at the serpent of bronze and live.” (21:9)
What had brought death is now the shape of healing. Those who were bitten must look at the very thing they fear.
How the Church reads it.
The Book of Wisdom already guards against any magical reading: the one who looked “was saved, not by the thing that was beheld, but by you, the Savior of all” (Wisdom 16:7). And when people later burned incense to the serpent, King Hezekiah broke it in pieces (2 Kings 18:4). The Catechism cites it among the images God allowed that pointed toward salvation through the incarnate Word (CCC 2130). St Justin Martyr makes a similar point in his Dialogue with Trypho, reading it as a sign of the Cross (in substance). Jesus himself draws the line: “just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up” (John 3:14), and the Church reads Numbers 21 at Mass on the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross.
Setting.
The setting is still the Temple, at the festival of Booths; Jesus has been teaching “in the treasury of the temple” (8:20). He speaks of going away, and the listeners cannot follow his meaning. They wonder if he plans to take his own life, when in fact others are planning his death.
In John, “the Jews” often means the authorities who oppose Jesus, not a whole people; Jesus, his mother and his first disciples were Jews, and many in this very scene believe in him (8:30).
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“for you will die in your sins unless you believe that I am he.” (8:24)
This is a warning, not a verdict. Faith is held out as the way of escape from the very thing he warns of.
“Why do I speak to you at all?” (8:25)
A note on the text. The Greek of this reply is famously hard, and translators differ. The NRSV hears a sigh. The Malayalam POC, like the Latin tradition, takes it as “what I have told you from the beginning”. Either way, Jesus does not give them a new title; he points them back to what they have already heard.
“When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will realize that I am he,” (8:28)
The Cross will not hide who Jesus is. It will show it. What looks like his defeat is the place where he is known (compare 12:32).
“for I always do what is pleasing to him.” (8:29)
He is not alone, even at the hour when all will leave him. Compare 16:32.
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism quotes John 8:28 to teach that the Resurrection confirms the truth of Jesus’ divinity (CCC 653). The Church teaches that Jesus’ death cannot be charged against all the Jews then alive, or against the Jews of today (Nostra Aetate 4; CCC 597). Every sinner has a part in it (CCC 598). We read “you have lifted up” as spoken to ourselves.