Lift Your Eyes and Live

Weariness has a way of distorting vision. In the desert, Israel grew tired and began to despise the very gift that kept them alive. In the temple courts, some grew tired of Jesus’ claims and dismissed the One who had come to save them. Lent invites a change of sight: from scanning the ground for serpents to lifting our eyes toward the One who is lifted up.

When Patience Wears Thin

Numbers shows a people at the end of their rope: “We are disgusted with this wretched food.” Manna; daily, faithful provision; had become tasteless to those who were exhausted and afraid. This is not far from life today. The pressures of deadlines, family stress, rising costs, and endless notifications erode patience. Gratitude grows thin; complaint feels like relief. Yet complaint can become a kind of venom. Resentment narrows the heart until even God’s gifts look like burdens.

The serpents in the desert are not just punishments; they are revelations. They externalize what has been slithering within: the bite of distrust, the sting of ingratitude. The people ask for the serpents to be taken away, but God, characteristically, offers something deeper than a quick fix.

The Medicine That Looks Like the Wound

God tells Moses to lift a bronze serpent on a pole so the bitten may look and live. The cure resembles the curse, yet it is stripped of its power. Healing arrives not by fleeing the reality of the wound, but by gazing on a sign of it, transformed.

This is a prophecy cast in metal. Christ will be “lifted up” on the Cross; what looks like defeat becomes the instrument of life. He takes on the likeness of sinful flesh without sinning, and in His body sin’s poison is drawn out and neutralized. The Cross is the antidote fashioned from the very place our wounds run deepest. We do not pretend the bite didn’t happen; we bring it under the mercy that remakes it.

“I AM” in a World of Half-Measures

In the Gospel, Jesus’ words are stark: “If you do not believe that I AM, you will die in your sins.” He is not offering a technique, a philosophy, or a moral upgrade. He is revealing the divine Name; “I AM”; the presence of God walking among us. To believe is not simply to agree; it is to entrust, to transfer our weight from self-saving strategies to the One who stands before us as truth.

“When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will realize that I AM.” The Cross discloses who Jesus is and who the Father is: faithful, self-giving love. The “lifting up” carries a triple sense; crucifixion, resurrection, ascension; because in God’s economy, abasement becomes exaltation, and death yields to life. Faith is learning to see that arc in our own story.

The God Who Hears Prisoners

The psalmist insists that God does not despise the cry of the poor. He bends low to hear prisoners and to “release those doomed to die.” Lent sharpens our hearing: where are the groans today? Some are literal; incarcerated persons, refugees, the trafficked. Others are interior: those imprisoned by addiction, anxiety, ceaseless comparison, or by a scrolling habit that numbs instead of heals. The God who hears is not far off. Jesus says, “The One who sent me is with me… He has not left me alone.” That is not only Christ’s confession; it also becomes ours in Him.

Turning Our Gaze

God did not remove the serpents; He gave a saving point of reference. Much of our distress will not vanish on command. Still, we live by where we look. Lent proposes a reorientation of the eyes.

Consider simple practices that retrain sight:

• When complaint rises, pause and name one concrete gift God has given today. Gratitude loosens resentment’s grip.
• Place a crucifix somewhere you will see it often. Let your eyes rest on it when fear or cynicism bites.
• Pray the psalm refrain; “O Lord, hear my prayer”; as a breath prayer, especially in moments of distress.
• Bring the real wound to Confession. The sacrament is not a moral audit but an encounter with the Physician.
• Fast from sarcasm and doomscrolling for a day each week; replace the impulse to “vent” with an act of intercession.
• Serve someone whose groan you can practically lighten: a visit, a meal, a ride, a bill paid quietly.

These are not magical fixes any more than the bronze serpent was an idol; they are obedient looks toward the mercy God has provided.

From Below to Above

Jesus contrasts belonging “to what is below” with belonging “to what is above.” That is more than geography; it is allegiance and atmosphere. To belong above is to breathe in the Father’s fidelity that steadied Jesus: “I do nothing on my own… I always do what is pleasing to Him.” In a world freighted with self-assertion, the Son shows a truer freedom: receiving, trusting, obeying love. Such reliance is not passivity; it is the courage that comes when one knows he is not alone.

Many “came to believe in him” as He spoke. Lent offers that same opening. The serpents may still crawl. The journey may still be long. But the remedy has been raised. Lift your eyes. Let the divine Name steady your heart. And when you feel the venom of complaint or fear begin to spread, return your gaze to the One lifted up, and live.