Bad breath and smelly feet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They don\u2019t exactly top the list of qualities we look for in romantic interests, friends or coworkers. Hence the obsession by those who possess these malodorous emissions to eliminate their social impact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Suggested home remedies for bad breath abound. One can chew a whole clove, brush teeth twice a day with baking powder, suck the juice from a cut lemon, chew a mouthful of sunflower seeds and then drink water, swallow probiotic enzymes to balance stomach digestion, gargle pineapple juice, eat parsley, or use dental floss that has been pre-soaked with tree seed oil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And for those who have fragrant, if not flagrant, feet, there\u2019re plenty of things you might try as well. You can change your socks twice a day, dust your feet with absorbent cornstarch, take daily oral zinc tablets, or slather armpit antiperspirant on your soles and between your toes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the most commonly suggested remedy for embarrassing foot odor is to soak one\u2019s feet in a black tea solution for 30 minutes each morning and evening until the smell slowly goes away over a couple of weeks. You\u2019ll need to have plenty of discretionary time on your hands, or more accurately, on your feet, for this approach to work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There must be a better solution for sufferers of these pungent maladies. If we can put a man on the moon, view cell nuclei with microscopes, and create seedless watermelons, then surely science can offer some help for our potentially putrid parts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scientists have already told us that smelly feet and bad breath are caused by bacteria that proliferate in those areas of the body. And British researchers have isolated certain bacteria that<\/p>\n\n\n\n

eat those bacteria which cause bad breath. These potential stink-killers grow on and consume the smelly compounds found in the mouth and on the feet. So imagine the potential commercial applications: Fill your mouth with bacteria to take care of that mouth full of bacteria. Or cover your feet with microorganisms to fix that sock full of microorganisms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Doesn\u2019t that sound far too close to the absurdity of the childhood nursery rhyme There was an Old Lady? One may remember that she swallowed a spider that wriggled and wiggled and tiggled inside her. She swallowed the spider to catch the fly. I don\u2019t know why she swallowed a fly. Perhaps she\u2019ll die!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It seems odd to swallow insects to kill swallowed insects. Or to eat bacteria to kill other bacteria. But consider the similar absurdity of the biblical remedy for poisonous snake bites: Stare at a snake on a stake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That was the prescription offered Israel in today\u2019s Lesson from the Book of Numbers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They had been wandering through the desert on their displaced pilgrimage between Egyptian enslavement and the eventual sacred home of the Promised Land. The journey was frustrating, their homes always temporary, and the food sub-par and monotonous. Just imagine camping with your family … for 40 years!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Numbers 11 the people were fed up with the food – tired of eating manna bread, manna porridge, manna stew and manna pasta. So they complained to Moses \u2013 \u201cGive us meat!\u201d – and in God\u2019s mercy, he granted them quail for food.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now in Numbers 21 they are complaining again: \u201cWhy 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<\/p>\n\n\n\n

food\u201d (21: 5). But this time, instead of sending his mercy through a banquet, God sends his punishment through snakes. He\u2019s displeased with their complaining, and we might even imagine that he\u2019s insulted. They\u2019re ignorant of his past and present provision, focused more on what they want God to do than on what he has already done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe snakes will give them a better perspective on manna.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And it does. Snakebites lead them to confession: \u201cWe have sinned by speaking against the Lord and against you\u201d (21:7). They turn from their complaints and plead with Moses to seek God\u2019s mercy on their behalf.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like God\u2019s mercy through the quails, he now grants mercy through forgiveness. But the remedy for their consequences is an interesting one. Like bacteria to deal with bacteria, or an insect to deal with insects, God offers them a snake to deal with their snakes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moses fashions a bronze serpent and places it on a tree limb to lift up in front of the people. When people afflicted by the snakes turn their gaze upon Moses\u2019 snake, they are healed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While that might seem a bit absurd, it is actually quite beautiful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

God offers them a symbolic antivenom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moses doesn\u2019t produce a magic snake that does the healing – a miraculous serpent like Aaron\u2019s staff-turned-snake that consumed the staff-snakes produced by Pharaoh\u2019s magicians. God himself provides their healing and forgiveness. But he uses this snake symbol so that his people will recognize the connection between their complaining and their punishment. It makes their forgiveness and healing an act of confronting the symbol of their sin as the means of receiving healing through that symbol.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How poignant that must have been. In their confession and repentance, God simultaneously shows them their sin and his grace. Problem and the solution in the same bronze serpent. Max Lucado says, \u201cTo see sin without grace is despair. To see grace without sin is arrogance. To see them in tandem is conversion.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sin and grace in one symbol. Problem and solution in one moment. A work of God in response to the sin of his people …the Cross of Christ.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Israel, their sin and their healing were lifted before them on a tree limb. And for those who would receive the forgiveness of Christ, our sin and our healing are lifted up before us on the Calvary tree: \u201cAnd 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\u201d (John 3:14-15).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The cure for bacteria is bacteria. The cure for snakes is a snake. And the cure for death is A Death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our God is an artist, weaving symbol and reality together to paint the picture of his redemption story on our behalf. And like all great works of art, this redemption picture has the innate ability to evoke a response in the viewer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the Christian, the cross creates an intimate connection between our sin choices and the consequences they bore upon our Savior. Thus our sin and God\u2019s grace are contained in the same moment. For the Israelites, confession of their sin of complaint involved recognizing their choice, proclaiming it as wrongful, and then turning to God\u2019s healing symbol so that their sin and his grace would be recognized together. Christian confession is the same, and it is only redemptive when it involves those same three movements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We pause to recognize that we have made a choice against the pleasure of our God, and there is healing in our recognition. We proclaim these sins to him in our personal prayers, in our liturgies, and in our confessions. And finally, we turn our gaze upon the reality of our forgiveness, the grace of Christ given us at the cross. Ultimately, there is healing only in our Savior, whose physical death on the cross cures the spiritual death from our sin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The complete masterpiece of God\u2019s redemptive work of art happens only when the completed work of Christ\u2019s cross meets our complete submission to forgiveness through confession. It is God\u2019s lavish grace curing our sinful choices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That is a healing that bacteria application or spider swallowing or snake gazing can never provide. A Death to cure death. Our sin and God\u2019s grace in one symbol – the Cross.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bad breath and smelly feet. They don\u2019t exactly top the list of qualities we look for in romantic interests, friends or coworkers. Hence the obsession by those who possess these malodorous emissions to eliminate their social impact. Suggested home remedies for bad breath abound. One can chew a whole clove, brush teeth twice a day […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"pgc_sgb_lightbox_settings":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n