March 22, 2009

This morning we hear a very odd take from the folklore of our spiritual ancestors and we hear the most familiar, most globally recognized verse of Christian scripture.  We learn that the two passages are related, often exploited and central to our faith.  Together, the two accounts tell us how God comes to his people wherever they are in their understanding and tailors his revelation to match their ability to comprehend.  Together, the two lessons demonstrate human beings’ tendency to interpret God’s actions as support for their own agendas.  And, together the two readings prove God’s determination to love and protect us. 

From the Book of Numbers, we learn that once again the newly freed children of Israel are dissatisfied with God’s plan for them.  They are in the desert, unsettled, longing for a hospitable neighborhood to put down roots.  Their complaints grow in sharpness, volume and frequency.  Instead of centering their disappointment of Moses and his leadership, they now rail against God himself.  “Your itinerary stinks.  We’re not getting anywhere.  This is ugly country.  We’re tired.  We don’t like the accommodations.  We detest this miserable food.”  Blah, blah, blah, blah.  And the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, the one that which nothing greater can be conceived, has had enough.  Like a parent we’ve all heard, he says, behave or I’ll give you something to really complain about.  And like human beings everywhere, the wandering Hebrews put God to the test. 

The whining and disrespect escalates.  So the story goes that the Lord responded.  Venomous land snakes entered their encampment and people got bit.  Suddenly the water rations and repetitious food doesn’t seem like such a big deal.  The people become contrite and humbled.  They come to Moses and apologize to him.  They beseech him to intervene with God on their behalf.  They even tell the prophet how to direct the Almighty.  “Pray to the Lord to take the serpents from us.”  God listens and responds with a counter plan.  Clear directions are given.  A powerful visual symbol is created.  A snake on a pole is fashioned.  The sign is to be staked in a central place, but when the people move through the wilderness, the symbol will be carried in front of the assembly so all can look upon it.  If anyone is bit and turns to the sign and believes in its power and accepts that the source of its power comes from God, they will survive the bite and live.  The snake on the pole looked like this: T You recognize the symbol.  This is the Tau cross, the cross of the Old Testament, the cross full of power and meaning for God’s first covenant people. 

Now, modern day skeptics might look on a literal interpretation of this account with suspicion.  They might say yes, poisonous snakes inhabit the Palestinian desert.  Yes, people get bit, yes people die from the venom, but gazing on a cross is not an effective antidote.  These folks might exploit this account and use it to point to unsophisticated gullibility of believers and the intemperate harshness of the God they follow.  Modern day theologians might counter with a metaphorical reading.  The Israelites forgot the mercy, justice and power of God.  They turned away from his ways and away from his presence in their lives.  They sinned.  Without a God focus, people fall into waywardness.  Waywardness leads to sad, bad outcomes.  Without a connection with God, people lose themselves to greed, selfishness, lying, cheating, you know the list.  They begin to feel isolated and empty and the pain of that existence pushes them to unhealthy choices and behaviors.  Eventually, those choices bring unpleasant consequences to their door.  Enter the snakes.  The serpents represent the harsh, but true realities of life separated from God.  Without a loving, proactive relationship with our creator, we get hurt.  Our lives turn bleak and we die alienated and bereft.  Recognizing our dependence on God, turning away from our prideful self-reliance and looking to God with gratitude and adoration, we are saved.  Our hurts are healed.  Our lives become centered and, later when we die, our physical life ends in peace.  Turning from sinful ways, turning towards God is the practice of repentance.  God’s sure and welcoming response is promised and has been experienced by the faithful through the ages.  The snake on the pole, the Tau cross represents this dynamic.  Turn back to God, set your focus there. You will be refreshed, renewed and restored.

A thousand plus years later, when God sends new revelation to his evolved people, this story is remembered and reclaimed.  Jesus said, “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must I be lifted up that whoever believes in me may have eternal life.”  Jesus is defining this mission.  In essence, he declares I am the new cross for a new time.  People still sin.  People still turn away from God or allow themselves to become distracted and forget to invite God into their daily existence.  Bad, sad consequences still result in living out of relationship with God.  I’m here as an answer, as a way out of this tragedy.  I’m here as a saving cure.  I didn’t come to hurt God’s people, to consign them to pain, death or hell.  I’m not the snake, I’m the anti-venom.  People, by their own actions, have hurt and condemned themselves.  I’m here to save any and all who will allow me the opportunity.  Set your eyes on me.  Follow me to the hill.  See me on the cross.  Know that I died for you.  I took on your sins and waywardness.  I drew out all the poison of your lives.  I pulled the toxins out of your very being and freed you from its killing effects.  You are free to live an unencumbered life, an abundant life on this earth.  And, more than that, more than that.

Jesus promises the world, as the new cross, as the symbol of God’s new covenant for a new time, better life on earth is not the end.  The supreme prize, the new reality is that when our physical time closes out, our being does not disappear.  Something else grand and marvelous awaits us.  In our gospel passage read this morning, Jesus gives the world something unexpected and overwhelming.  We are not doomed to living our lives as broken beings.  And, we are not fated to enter nothingness when we die.  Good life on earth, eternal life in heaven is our destiny and the means for both is at hand.  For gracious sake people, turn this way and look!  See the Son of God.  See him for who he is and believe that he can save you.  He can restore you to the image of God you carry within you.  He can carry you through the valley of death and into the gates of heaven wherever they are and whatever that reality turns out to be.  This is the ultimate good news.  We are offered a guaranteed long, long, long lasting cure for every bad thing that bites or assails us.

But, just as with the serpent in the desert revelation, human beings can reshape this account for their own purposes.  The earlier story lends itself to ridicule and superficial understanding.  Our gospel passage from John lends itself to becoming an inane, misrepresented flashpoint.  The whole context of the story is that first God had Moses create a bronze and wooden talisman to help the people focus on his power and his call to relationship.  Now, he sends something far more precious and infinitely more powerful.  He sends his only Son.  This passage is about deep, deep love and incredible sacrifice and enduring commitment.  The creation of a new cross, the replacement of the Tau with the Alpha and the Omega, the everlasting beginning and ongoing end that is Jesus Christ, changes the course of human history and universal reality.  Death no longer defines existence.  There is something that follows.  This new revelation and promise from God is about possibility, eternal hope and healing, saving grace.  “God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”  That’s John 3:17.  We don’t see that verse on people’s chests at football games, but this is the immediate follow-up point to 3:16.  For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, not to be as a snake, biting and condemning, but as the cure on a cross bringing us back to full life.

As this season continues, as we draw closer to the time of Christ’s supreme sacrifice, let us fix our eyes on the new cross.  May we see it not as a symbol of dread or testament to our waywardness, but as a clear sign of God’s incredible love for us and as a way back to health and deep, full relationship with our creator.  May this be our late Lenten prayer.  Amen.