Provocative title, eh? The funny thing is this: I'm actually writing about both snakes and circumcision. So, it's not just a edgy title to make you feel compelled to read this (although I won't apologize if the title is what caught you).
Let's begin with an exercise in imagination. For a moment, imagine one of the most intensely worshipful, meaningful times you have ever experienced. Take a moment just to fix that memory in your mind.
Explore that mental image. Was there anyone else there with you? Was someone or something leading you into that experience? Was it a church service? A song? A conversation? A time of intimate and passionate prayer? A timely message? A broken relinquishment long overdue?
As you fill in the blanks of that memory, recall how that moment came to be. Was there something someone did to create an environment that was conducive to you worshiping? Was there a mood that was created through a particular type of music, lighting, or other creative element? Was there an illustration that was used--a story, or perhaps an object that allowed God's message to slip into your heart and invite you to respond?
Ok. End imagination time. For now.
If I were to ask one of the ancient Jews (or even an Orthodox Jew of today, for that matter) that same question, "What is one of the most intensely worshipful or meaningful experiences that you've had?", I'm guessing that some of them might answer: "When my wife and I had our son's bris. Circumcision is a long standing and meaningful tradition in our faith. I really feel like God is near when we follow this command that he set up for our forefathers so long ago."
Begin imagination time again. Imagine what it would be like to participate as a Jew in something like that. To do something that your ancestors have done for literally thousands of years. To read a text Genesis or Deuteronomy where God himself--God himself--first set this practice up... and then to experience it firsthand. The stories there on those pages wouldn't just be stories from long ago; you would feel connected to them, in solidarity with them as you witnessed this ancient practice and were bathed in the spiritual significance of it firsthand.
Now imagine that someone within your Jewish faith came to you and said, "I feel like this tradition of circumcision is really no longer applicable to today's culture. In fact, I think that this practice can actually be really dangerous. It seems to separate us in ways that are no longer holy. We should consider not doing it anymore, or at least not making it a part of our worship or a staple of our faith."
How would you react?
Well, that really happened, as most of us know. And most of us know why. And most of us would agree with why. And most of us have benefitted from the decision to remove circumcision from its place as the defining characteristic and practice for people to be considered "in" the family of God. And so, most of us would have trouble feeling the tension of that decision that was made almost 2000 years ago now.
So, end imagination time. Again, just for now.
But consider this. A very similar story to the one about circumcision occurs in 2 Kings 18:1-4:
"In the third year of Hoshea son of Elah king of Israel, Hezekiah son of Ahaz king of Judah began to reign. He was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem twenty-nine years. His mother's name was Abijah daughter of Zechariah. He did what was right in the eyes of the LORD, just as his father David had done. He removed the high places, smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles. He broke into pieces the bronze snake Moses had made, for up to that time the Israelites had been burning incense to it. (It was called Nehushtan.)"
A story like this takes a little bit of contextualizing. "High places" were places on hilltops designated for worship specifically because of their location, closer to the sky where the gods supposedly dwelt. Asherah poles were trees or poles that were set in the ground designated to the mother-goddess Asherah. Both of these elements were clearly idolatrous, and a blight on the uniquely Israelite belief in One God. Worldly forms of worship had infected the Israelites' worship of the One True God.
But the attacks on pure and God-focused worship weren't coming from the outside only. In fact, the most sinister attacks on true worship usually don't come from the outside; they come from the inside. Like circumcision. Such was the case in Hezekiah's day.
If you think about it, the task to destroy the high places and the Asherah poles in Israel was pretty clear--definitely not easy due to their broad acceptance and appeal, but nevertheless clear. They were blatant forms of idolatry, worship of a God other than Yahweh. So, whether you like it or not, Israel, what you are doing is here is wrong, because God has given us clear evidence in both his spoken and written word that there is only One God, and we are to worship him only. Thus saith King Hezekiah, thus saith the religious community, and thus saith God in his spoken and written Law.
But then there's this other thing--this thing that's not an altar to another god. It's a bronze snake - the same one that God told Moses to craft and lift up in Israel during the time of the exodus, when Israel was disobedient and being punished. God used this snake to heal his people from the plague they had brought on themselves. This was a symbol--one that God himself had told Moses to make, one that had brought real life redemption to them, one that had come to symbolize everything that was once good and right about Israel and her relationship to God. It had even acquired a personal name over time--Nehushtan (a combination of the Hebrew words for "bronze," "snake," and "unclean thing").
We aren't told which Israelites were burning incense to Nehushtan--if they were the same ones who were worshiping at the high places and at the Asherah poles, or if they were different ones. If I were to make a guess, I'd say that for the most part, the people burning incense to Nehushtan probably wouldn't have anything to do with those other "worldly" idolaters. Perhaps they considered themselves the keepers of proper worship, longing for the glory days to which the bronze snake testified.
I think the young king Hezekiah had a bigger challenge facing him on the Nehushtan front than he did on the high places/Asherah pole front. I'm sure that he found no shortage of allies when it came to ridding Israel of explicitly idolatrous practices. Purists and reformists can easily be found throughout history and even today, and sometimes in great numbers, especially in church where many of us consider ourselves to be the guardians of proper and pure worship. But when it came to a sacred religious symbol like the bronze snake which God himself directed the revered patriarch Moses to fashion--something that housed such great and powerful imagery, perhaps even viewed as a beacon of true worship--I bet Hezekiah found much fewer allies. It could have been that the allies he had found in his campaign against the high places quickly turned out to be his enemies when his vision of purity included destroying the symbol of purity.
And yet the bronze snake was just that--a bronze snake. That's all it ever was, really. Just a bronze snake. It was the Great Spirit-God Yahweh himself who energized it with his healing presence at one time. Even during that time, it was only a bronze snake.
But Israel had made one of God's instruments into an image of God. It began to illicit their worshipful affections, and they responded to it like they should have responded only to God and God only. And so, the courageous and godly young king Hezekiah did the most holy thing he could have done: he killed the snake. And in so doing, he freed Israel from a form that had begun to restrict their view and worship of the great, mysterious, personal, present, perfect God.
Let's imagine again.
You are an Israelite who has shunned the worldly forms of idolatry and have stuck to your convictions to worship the One True God. You go to the temple regularly to worship. You love to look upon the bronze snake. It's symbolism stirs your heart and your affections for God in a way that no other method or form does. You see absolutely no problem with expressing your worship of God through burning incense at the foot of the snake. After all, God is a God of healing; it's not like you're claiming that God is something he is not as you worship through burning incense at the snake.
But someone comes along, and without discussion or forewarning, destroys the thing that you have held with such reverence and awe. Even more, he does it claiming that it is an idol just like the high places or the Asherah poles.
How would you feel? How would you react? How would you view the person responsible for destroying what you held sacred, without consulting you or anyone else who preferred to worship like you?
End imagination time. If you can.
But maybe you can't stop imagining, because maybe the implications of these stories are already starting to press on you right here, right now, today. And it should. We have bronze snakes all over the place in our places of worship.
"Our music should be..." Reverent? Powerful? Relevant? Peaceful? Created by a Christian artist? God-centered? Jesus-focused? Rock? Hymns? Gospel? Excellent? Timeless? Culturally appropriate? Simple? Deep? Authentic? All good things, some even necessary. But if you let any one of them push their way into a place where you can't see or connect with God in their absence, then they have become a bronze snake. And you need to kill it.
"I just can't worship like I really want to unless I'm up on stage." Bronze snake. God is equally present everywhere. Kill it.
"Secular music has absolutely no place in the church. Only Christian music can draw people into the presence of God." Bronze snake. God is the creator of all music, secular and Christian, and he can, will, and does use any of it that he pleases to draw people closer to himself. Kill it.
"Piano-led bands/guitar-led bands/choirs are really the things that invite people into worship." Bronze snake. God created every single instrument and authored all rhythms, tones, and principles of arrangement, and uses all of it to speak to all of who he is. Kill it.
These forms, symbols, and convictions can either serve us by opening our eyes, minds, and hearts to one of the many perfections of the God Who Is Spirit, or they can enslave us by restricting our vision of God to a particular truth contained in a particular form. And when one of those forms begins to embody God to us, it is up to us to kill it in favor of the God without form.
