Numbers 21:4-9, John 3:14-21
When my nephew was about 4 years old he came out to visit
me in South Dakota.
Grandma and grandpa drove him out, he went to Bible
School with the children at my church, and we had a good time together. At
the end of the week I drove him back to Minnesota and to Grandma and Grandpa’s
house.
Which turned out to be an ordeal. More than I expected.
It was about
a 4 and a half hour trip, but you would
have thought it was 40 years in the wilderness.
He was sitting in his car seat in the back seat and every
couple of minutes he would ask again, how many miles? (Like he knew what a mile was)
Or how any minutes?
(Like he had any real concept of how long a minute was.)
Every few minutes the question again, and every few
minutes I tried to give him an answer. I even tried to stop at a Dairy Queen for a
treat along the way, and that didn’t seem to brighten his mood.
And at one point his little despairing voice cried out,
“Oh, I don’t think we’re EVER going to get to Grandma’s house!”
O Ye of little faith.
There is so much in this reading from Numbers that is
outside of our experience. Except the
complaining.
That part we can understand.
The Israelites have been wandering in the wilderness for
about 40 years now and they are complaining.
They don’t like the manna, they don’t think they are ever
going to get where they are going, they doubt not only Moses’ wisdom, but
God’s. And
this “Murmuring” --that’s what it is
called in scripture” -- this has been
going on for –oh – about 40 years.
So they are complaining in the wilderness – but the
things that happen next – they are strange, and if we are honest, they probably
don’t fit our picture of God.
First there are the serpents that God sends.
The scriptures doesn’t say that God sends them as a
punishment exactly – but that’s what the Israelites understand, and when the
serpents start biting them, and they die, they cry out to God for help. They
ask God to take the serpents away.
Which (and this is strange too) God doesn’t do.
Instead, God says, make a bronze serpent and put it on a
pole and when people who are bitten look at it, they will live.
And that is what
they do, and that is what happens.
When the people who are bitten look at the bronze serpent
on a pole, they are healed. They do not
die.
I’m not going to lie – this seems like a strict
punishment for complaining, which is something we all do, sometimes.
In fact, if you read the Psalms, there are plenty of
laments that sound exactly like complaining.
The Psalmist complains about the presence of evil in the
world, and that he doesn’t understand God’s ways.
“Why do the wicked prosper? Why am I suffering? My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”
All of these complaints and questions are right there in
the Psalms. The words are there for us
to pray.
But here in Numbers, when the Israelites complain, they
get serpents.
And when they turn back to God and ask for help – instead
of getting rid of the serpents, God sends another kind of remedy.
And I am not even going to begin to say that I understand
all of what God might be up to here.
But remember the covenant. Remember
the promise that God made to them, and that they made to God. God said, “I will be your God. Trust me.”
And they said, “We will do everything that you say.” And they don’t.
Their complaints reveal ingratitude (We don’t like the
food – blech), faithlessness (why have you brought us out here?),
and distrust. But I will give them this: when Moses tells them to look at the pole
with the bronze serpent, they do it.
“Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness,
so must the Son of man be lifted up” --
Jesus says, in the gospel reading.
He is speaking with Nicodemus in the darkness. They are talking about the mysterious things
of God, the Spirit of God, light and darkness, life and death, being born
anew.
These are things that Nicodemus doesn’t understand, even
though he is a teacher.
And then Jesus brings him back to what has to be a story
familiar to him: remember when you
wandered in the wilderness, and you rebelled and complained and did not trust
God for your salvation? Remember the serpents, and how when Moses
lifted one up on a pole, and you looked at the serpent, you were healed?
When you look to me, on the cross, when I am lifted up,
you will be healed.
And it must have seemed every bit as strange to Nicodemus
as the serpent does to us.
I can’t imagine what it must have been like for the
people of Israel to look at a replica of the thing that bit them. Well, maybe I can.
I’m not a lover of
snakes, especially if I know they are dangerous. That’s one of the things that sort of makes
me nervous about Texas. You have the
dangerous snakes here…. Not just the icky, but relatively harmless ones.
It had to take a sort of courage – to look at the serpent
– and trust – to believe that it would work.
And for the early church – to look at the cross must have
felt the same.
We put flowers on it at Easter time – but the cross did
not start out to be a symbol of salvation.
It was a
particularly gruesome form of execution, reserved for the worst criminals. Look at the cross, and live.
Believe that the cross heals you somehow. It had to take some courage to do that.
But even more – to look at the serpent on the pole meant
that the Israelites had to look at their own complaining, their own mistrust of
God, their own failure to live as God’s people.
They had to look at the serpent and know themselves. That takes courage too.
“Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness,
so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that whoever believed in him may have
eternal life.”
So that whoever trusts him may be healed. So that whoever looks to him may live.
When we look at the cross, really look – what do we
see?
We see an act of evil – and maybe we also catch a glimpse
of the evil in the world, the suffering that we cause each other, the ways,
large and small, that we grieve each other, and God.
When we look at the cross, what do we see? Do we see the ways we have turned our back on
God, trusting anything else to save us?
Do we see the one who offered the world healing, life, and forgiveness?
Do we see both of
these things on the cross?
It is an act of courage to look at the cross. And see ourselves.
It is an act of
trust to look at the cross – and trust that THERE – in that unlikely place – we
will find healing. And love. And life.
I don’t understand why God didn’t just take away the
serpents in the wilderness.
But he didn't. He didn't.
There are
serpents in this world, there are dangers, toils, and snares.
And God doesn’t take them away.
We live in the wilderness – where there is a lot
to complain about – a lot to lament about.
We live in a world where there is suffering and sin, and
some of it belongs to us. We live in the
wilderness, but we live with the remedy as well.
I think of my nephew – in the car – in the wilderness –
on the way home.
And maybe the best we can do is say, like he did, “Are we
there yet?”
It IS a long journey – but God is with us – and on the
way there is manna
And dairy queen
And grace
On the way we can point out for one another and remind
each other to look up – to lift our eyes
--
And be healed.
AMEN
1 comment:
This sort of sympathetic magic is common enough, even today. Voodoo dolls, a prime example. Not too surprising that the Torah writer would choose this.
I am surprised that nobody has made the connection between this serpent and the serpent in the GoE. Both have to do with eating, etc...
Anyway, nice sermon. There is, of course, no real connection between these passages. A little grating of the RCL to do that. But, I like the way you wove them together. Of course, when we look to the cross we also have to see ourselves as that is all J. really promises... the cross. It is not a hopeful religion, really.
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