Fifth Tuesday of Lent
24 March 2026
The wound and the remedy
The first reading from Numbers is strange, memorable, and easy to picture. The people of Israel are again complaining in the desert. Again. They are impatient. They speak against God and against Moses. They reject the very path by which God is leading them.
And then come the serpents.
At first this can sound severe to us, but the deeper point is clear: sin is not harmless. Their rebellion is not just bad attitude. It is poison. It destroys from within.
And once the people begin to suffer, they finally say what they should have said sooner: “We have sinned.” That is one of the great Lenten sentences. Not an excuse. Not a justification. Not blaming circumstances or other people. Just the truth: “We have sinned.”
And when they confess their sin, God gives an unusual remedy. Moses is told to make a bronze serpent and lift it up on a pole. Whoever looks upon it after being bitten will live. That is a powerful image, because God does not simply remove them from the wilderness. He does not pretend the poison never entered. Instead, He provides a way of healing in the very place where they were wounded.
Now bring that to the Gospel.
Jesus says something unsettling: “You will die in your sin unless you believe that I AM.” That is one of the sharpest statements Jesus makes in John’s Gospel. He is saying that the real problem is not Roman occupation, not political instability, not outward suffering. The deepest problem is sin and if they refuse to recognize who He is, they will remain in it.
Then they ask Him, “Who are you?” And that question is really at the center of the reading. Because everything depends on who Jesus is.
If He is only a teacher, then His words are advice. If He is only a prophet, then His warnings are one warning among many. But if He is truly who He says He is—if He is the one sent by the Father, the great I AM standing before them—then to reject Him is to reject the only source of life.
That is why Jesus says: “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will realize that I AM.”
The people in the wilderness were healed by looking at the bronze serpent lifted up. Jesus is telling us that this was pointing beyond itself. The real healing will come when He is lifted up on the Cross. In other words, the wilderness serpent was a sign. The Cross is the fulfillment.
The poison of sin is real. And so is the remedy.
And the remedy is not self-improvement. It is not pretending we are fine. It is not spiritual distraction. It is Christ lifted up.
This is why these readings belong exactly here in Lent. At this point in the season, the Church wants us to stop speaking vaguely about conversion and to look directly at the one place where sin is defeated and healing begins.
The Israelites had to look where they did not want to look. They had to face both the reality of their wound and the means God provided.
So do we.
Because all of us know something of that poison. Resentment. Pride. Lust. Anger. Bitterness. Self-reliance. The slow interior death that comes when we resist God long enough.
And Lent is the time to stop pretending the bite is not there.
But it is also the time to lift our eyes. Not to ourselves. Not to our failures. But to Christ.
Jesus does not merely diagnose the sickness. He becomes the anecdote. He becomes the place of healing. He is lifted up so that those wounded by sin may live.
And that means the Christian life is not first about managing appearances. It is about learning where to look.
The people in Numbers lived when they looked up in faith.
And Jesus tells us that eternal life begins the same way.
Look to the Son.
Believe in who He is.
And live.
The first reading from Numbers is strange, memorable, and easy to picture. The people of Israel are again complaining in the desert. Again. They are impatient. They speak against God and against Moses. They reject the very path by which God is leading them.
And then come the serpents.
At first this can sound severe to us, but the deeper point is clear: sin is not harmless. Their rebellion is not just bad attitude. It is poison. It destroys from within.
And once the people begin to suffer, they finally say what they should have said sooner: “We have sinned.” That is one of the great Lenten sentences. Not an excuse. Not a justification. Not blaming circumstances or other people. Just the truth: “We have sinned.”
And when they confess their sin, God gives an unusual remedy. Moses is told to make a bronze serpent and lift it up on a pole. Whoever looks upon it after being bitten will live. That is a powerful image, because God does not simply remove them from the wilderness. He does not pretend the poison never entered. Instead, He provides a way of healing in the very place where they were wounded.
Now bring that to the Gospel.
Jesus says something unsettling: “You will die in your sin unless you believe that I AM.” That is one of the sharpest statements Jesus makes in John’s Gospel. He is saying that the real problem is not Roman occupation, not political instability, not outward suffering. The deepest problem is sin and if they refuse to recognize who He is, they will remain in it.
Then they ask Him, “Who are you?” And that question is really at the center of the reading. Because everything depends on who Jesus is.
If He is only a teacher, then His words are advice. If He is only a prophet, then His warnings are one warning among many. But if He is truly who He says He is—if He is the one sent by the Father, the great I AM standing before them—then to reject Him is to reject the only source of life.
That is why Jesus says: “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will realize that I AM.”
The people in the wilderness were healed by looking at the bronze serpent lifted up. Jesus is telling us that this was pointing beyond itself. The real healing will come when He is lifted up on the Cross. In other words, the wilderness serpent was a sign. The Cross is the fulfillment.
The poison of sin is real. And so is the remedy.
And the remedy is not self-improvement. It is not pretending we are fine. It is not spiritual distraction. It is Christ lifted up.
This is why these readings belong exactly here in Lent. At this point in the season, the Church wants us to stop speaking vaguely about conversion and to look directly at the one place where sin is defeated and healing begins.
The Israelites had to look where they did not want to look. They had to face both the reality of their wound and the means God provided.
So do we.
Because all of us know something of that poison. Resentment. Pride. Lust. Anger. Bitterness. Self-reliance. The slow interior death that comes when we resist God long enough.
And Lent is the time to stop pretending the bite is not there.
But it is also the time to lift our eyes. Not to ourselves. Not to our failures. But to Christ.
Jesus does not merely diagnose the sickness. He becomes the anecdote. He becomes the place of healing. He is lifted up so that those wounded by sin may live.
And that means the Christian life is not first about managing appearances. It is about learning where to look.
The people in Numbers lived when they looked up in faith.
And Jesus tells us that eternal life begins the same way.
Look to the Son.
Believe in who He is.
And live.