Snakes

   "They will take up snakes, and if they drink anything deadly, it will not hurt them." Mark Ch. 16, vs. 18.
   Do you like snakes?
   To call someone a snake is to imply he is deceptive, slippery, and liable to strike without warning. 
   Perhaps we have the serpent in the Garden of Eden to thank for that.  Would Eve have responded so receptively to Satan's suggestion--'Go ahead, take a bite, it won't hurt you'-- if she what she saw was so repulsive?
The consequences for that first disobedience fell not only on Adam and Eve, but on the serpent, also, suggesting a kind of metamorphosis:
   "Upon your belly you shall go,
      and dust you shall eat all the days of your life."  Genesis Ch. 3, vs. 14
However beguiling the original form of the serpent, it became something detestable:
   "God said to the serpent, 'Because you have done this,
       cursed are you above all cattle, and all wild animals.' 
How can anyone snuggle up to a snake, except, perhaps, with extreme caution.?
   Yet here, in Mark's Gospel, we find even this old Enemy is no longer a deadly threat to those who have place their trust in Jesus.  Mark quotes Him in chapter 16, verses 17 and 18, saying:
   " In my Name they will cast out demons,
      they will speak in new tongues,
      they will pick up serpents,
      and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not hurt them;
      they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover"
Remarkable!  So remarkable, in fact, that some scholars have considered them improbable, and concluded the Gospel after verse 8, before the account of the Resurrection.
    Or is Mark telling us, in his breathless, straightforward style, that, as believers, we need not worry, for sin has been crushed at its fountainhead by Jesus Himself, on the Cross?  As God said to the serpent in the Garden of Eden:
   "He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel."
We can safely leave the handling of serpents to snake charmers, and other who feel called to do so.
But rest assured, the Ancient Serpent has been dealt with, Death has lost its sting, and there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 
   Tread carefully, but do not fear.  Snakes will not hurt you.