Wake Up the Snakes

Every year as Spring approaches we are treated to some thunderstorms. My dad used to say that these first booms of thunder were to “wake up the snakes.” I’m not sure that was to be comforting to me or something else. But it is something that I’ve never forgotten from my dad’s “wisdom.”

Initially we might be inclined to think of snakes in the Bible in a negative context such as the serpent who tempted Eve or John the Baptist calling the Pharisees and Sadducees a brood of vipers. Jesus called the scribes and Pharisees “serpents, brood of vipers!” in Matthew 23:33, “How can you escape the condemnation of hell?”

But the Bible also seems to use the serpent in a more positive way. In the Old Testament Moses was instructed to put a serpent on a pole for healing, an image you can find today in most medical facilities. God used the serpent as a teaching object lesson with the rod of Moses. It’s also believed that people associated serpents with wisdom. Jesus sent His disciples out as sheep among wolves and admonished them to be as wise as serpents and innocent as doves.

I’m guessing that most who are reading this don’t like snakes. I get that. But a thunderstorm this week reminded me that Spring is coming and the snakes are waking up, which got me to thinking. Are we guilty of the Pharisaical behavior that Jesus obviously repudiated? Do we set up ourselves to be holier than others so that we look down on others and judge them? Or are we on the frontline in the midst of a perverse generation, bringing the healing good news of the Gospel to those to whom God has sent us? We have a choice. Pick your snake.

I’m glad for the promise of Spring. It’s proof of God’s faithfulness:

“As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.” Genesis 8:22

So as the lens of the past recalls simple memories, let’s look to the future by keeping in step with the Holy Spirit.  Pick your snake. Let its symbolism of wisdom wake up in you.

“Summer and winter, and springtime and harvest,

Sun moon and stars in their courses above.

Join with all nature in manifold witness 

To Thy great faithfulness, mercy and love.

Great is Thy faithfulness! Great is Thy faithfulness!

Morning by morning new mercies I see;

All I have needed Thy hand hath provided —

Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me.”