Restorer of Life, Come

BY Melanie Rainer

My house is full of pictures of people I love. Frames litter nearly every available surface, and everywhere I look, I see the people and places that remind me who I am and where I’m from. 

When I’m anxious, when my nervous system starts to bubble like boiling water on a hot stove and I feel my heart race, I look at a picture. Sometimes it’s of the lake where I grew up or the top of a mountain I climbed or the day of my wedding or my children as babies. These pictures, symbols of moments of great joy, bring my nervous system back into regulation, calm my sprinting heart, and remind me of what is true and good. 

When the Israelites physically wandered the desert, their minds and hearts wandered too. Was God really good? Was He really trustworthy? Did He want the best for them? 

These are all questions that dash through my mind too. 

When the people suffer greatly from snake bites, they cry out to the God they had doubted days before, pleading for mercy. God told Moses to mount a bronze snake on a pole and whoever looked at the snake would be healed. 

God’s answer to their fears? Look to Him. To their sin? Look to Him. Healing and peace—two eternal aches—were found when they lifted their eyes to the God who created and sustained and loved them. 

When Jesus repeated this story hundreds of years later, He replaced the image of the snake with the visual of himself, the Son of Man. “So the Son of Man must be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life” (John 3:14–15). When we are heavy with guilt, doubt, suffering, and anger like the Israelites, we remember Jesus, the One who was lifted up.

The old hymn “Come Ye Souls by Sin Afflicted” by Joseph Swain, an eighteenth century minister, includes the lyrics: “Come ye souls by, sin afflicted / …by the broken, law convicted / through the cross, behold the crown / Look to Jesus; Look to Jesus; Look to Jesus / Mercy flows through Him alone.” All we need to do is look to Jesus to find the mercy, healing, and restoration our hearts are needing.