Church of the Bronze Serpent

I was reading john 3 with some friends tonight and we came across the following verse:

14 "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up."

I asked what serpent was Jesus referring to. Was it the serpent and the staff story?

We weren't sure so we looked at the footnotes. It is a reference to Numbers 21:4-9 which says:

They traveled from Mount Hor along the route to the Red Sea, to go around Edom. But the people grew impatient on the way; they spoke against God and against Moses, and said, "Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the desert? There is no bread! There is no water! And we detest this miserable food!"

Then the LORD sent venomous snakes among them; they bit the people and many Israelites died. The people came to Moses and said, "We sinned when we spoke against the LORD and against you. Pray that the LORD will take the snakes away from us." So Moses prayed for the people.

The LORD said to Moses, "Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live." So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, he lived.

I'm sure it's not true, but I felt as though I had never heard that story before.

Jesus compares himself with this bronze serpent? What can that mean?

Just as those bitten by the serpents were saved by looking at the bronze serpent, so can we be saved by looking to Jesus.

I think I was most struck how unlike western Christianity this story seems. And to think Jesus himself uses this story to describe himself and his role.

Turns out there's a lot of good stuff in the Bible!

John 2: 1-12, Wine from Water

On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there; and both Jesus and His disciples were invited to the wedding.When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to Him, "They have no wine." 

And Jesus said to her, "Woman, what does that have to do with us? My hour has not yet come." 

His mother said to the servants, "Whatever He says to you, do it." 

Now there were six stone waterpots set there for the Jewish custom of purification, containing twenty or thirty gallons each. Jesus said to them, "Fill the waterpots with water." So they filled them up to the brim. And He said to them, "Draw some out now and take it to the headwaiter." So they took it to him. 

When the headwaiter tasted the water which had become wine, and did not know where it came from (but the servants who had drawn the water knew), the headwaiter called the bridegroom, and said to him, "Every man serves the good wine first, and when the people have drunk freely, then he serves the poorer wine; but you have kept the good wine until now." This beginning of His signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee, and manifested His glory, and His disciples believed in Him. After this He went down to Capernaum, He and His mother and His brothers and His disciples; and they stayed there a few days.

Why did Jesus turn water into wine?

Perhaps it was foreshadowing for the symbolism to follow. At the last supper, Jesus uses the wine to represent his own blood and his own blood washes us of sin; it is the new fluid of the baptism of the Spirit.
(Blood=Wine);Water, so to speak.