NOTES for Mat 25:1-13
Speaking about His purpose, the Lord recalls the episode described in chapter 21 of the Book of Numbers, when the people of God suffered an invasion of serpents as a consequence of their disobedience. Many died from their bites. Then the Lord commanded Moses to lift up a bronze serpent, and whoever looked at it remained alive. In general, the serpent is a symbol of disobedience and departure from the will of God, as we remember from the account of the fall of Adam and Eve. It is a symbol of broken relations with God. Something must therefore restore these relations. Heaven and earth must somehow be joined again. Do you remember Jacob’s ladder? And the angels descending from Heaven and ascending by it to Heaven? It is an astonishing image of communion between earth and Heaven: that for which humanity strives, but which proves impossible because of humanity’s original falling away from God. “No one has yet ascended into Heaven except the Son of Man who descended from Heaven.” Christ is called to accomplish this descent and ascent.
And how will He ascend? He will be lifted up. Lifted up on the Cross. Just as Moses’ lifting up of the bronze serpent saved people from a terrible death by snakebite, the lifting up of Jesus delivers us from the work of the serpent that tempted the first human being and, in him, each of us. “For God so loved the world...”