Prop: rubber snake (preferably a horned viper –warning, do not use a live viper)

“I desire mercy, not sacrifice….I have come to call sinners.” (Matthew 9:9-13)

I have here a snake.

I can see the wrinkled-up noses, yes! That’s the reaction we usually have, most of us, to snakes! There’ something about a snake that just strikes discomfort or terror in the best of us. They are unusual looking, have sharp teeth. They are fast-moving and most of all unpredictable.

In the holy land, especially in the desert around Egypt, there lives an especially vicious snake. Its name is the “horned viper.” Cerastes, cerastes is its technical name. Some of you may remember encountering cerastes, cerastes if you read the novel, The Seraph Seal.

The horned viper lives and burrows into the sands of the deser…