Fourth Sunday in Lent
Sermon by The Reverend Loree Reed

Numbers 21: 4–9
John 3: 14–21
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

It’s hardly a beautiful image.  In the middle of the desert Moses lifts up a bronze serpent he has mounted on top of a pole.  The snake has been crafted to resemble the fiery serpents that have recently come out of the rocks to attack the children of Israel.  And though God doesn’t say a word, the children of Israel understand right away that he has sent those serpents against them.  For although they’re en route to the land he has promised them, guided by a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire at night, although their every need has been supplied, they have once again begun to murmur and complain.  And this time it’s not just against Moses, but against God himself, against the very tokens of his love for them.
Oh no – not manna again!  We’re sick and tired of manna!
Baked manna, fried manna, steamed manna, barbecued manna
– all we ever get is this blessed manna!
So the poisonous snakes come out against them, and many people die.  Realizing they have finally pushed God’s patience too far, the children of Israel now gaze up at the bronze serpent Moses has crafted.  As they gaze upon it, they realize they are looking at the consequences of their own sin – and they repent.  And because they repent God draws the venom of those snakebites out of them – and many are healed.
It’s not the image of the bronze snake that heals them.  Instead, it’s their willingness to acknowledge their sin – and see past it to the grace and mercy of God – that finally makes them whole.
That’s such a strange little story buried deep in the depths of the Old Testament, we would probably never recall it – except that Jesus himself uses it to introduce what is probably the most frequently quoted verse in the entire New Testament.  “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness,” he tells Nicodemus, “so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.”  And then he offers the Gospel in a nutshell:  “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but have everlasting life.”
This news is so good we see references to it – John 3:16 — printed on large placards in football stadiums.  We see it printed on the backs of 18–wheeler trucks traveling down the highway.  We see references to it spray painted on bridge underpasses and cement walls in the city and on hand–made wooden signs in the country.  We see that good news printed everywhere.  But we almost never see the two lines that precede that good news.  “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness,” Jesus tells Nicodemus, “so must the Son of man be lifted up – so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but have everlasting life.”
So why is it that we never see those preceding two lines? I think there are a couple of reasons.  First of all, I can hardly imagine an uglier image than a snake lifted up on a pole.  Like a lot of you, I’m afraid of snakes – nasty, slithery creatures that they are.  It’s no wonder they get a bad press all the way through the Bible.  But surely, the more sickening, more heart–wrenching image is of Jesus, lifted up on the cross – because it’s my sin that put him there.
And nobody, these days, wants to talk about sin.  We find the whole concept too depressing, too focused on guilt and shame.  We would much rather focus on the God of blessing, the God of goodness and grace – than a God of judgment.  We’ll call on a doctor to deal with an illness or a therapist to help us manage some guilt – before we’ll call on God to confess our sin.  We’d even rather call a lawyer to help us deal with some legal mess – before we’ll call on God to talk about sin.
For if it’s sin at the root of some problem I’m having – then maybe that problem is closer to me than I’d like to admit.  If it’s sin, then maybe – at least in part – I’m responsible for the way things are.  If it’s sin then maybe I’ve helped to make the mess I find myself in.  If sin is at the root of it all, then only God – by his grace and my repentance – can make it right.
But it’s right there that you and I find our best hope.  In fact, sin is our only hope.  Because realizing that something is wrong is the first step towards setting it right again.  There’s no help for people who won’t admit their need for help.  There’s no repair for people who insist that nothing hurts, nothing is broken.  And there’s no hope for transformation in a world whose citizens insist that the wreckage, the pollution all around them is just the way life is.¹
So sin is our only hope, and repentance is the process of our repair.²  It might not be a quick fix.  It might take God a while to sort out all the different strands of everything that’s gone wrong.  But that’s what Lent is for.  It’s a time for us to pay attention to the ache within us that tells us something is wrong.  It’s a time to look carefully at some of the problems in our lives and be honest with God about our responsibility for those situations.  And it’s a time to ask God, humbly, to repair what has broken.
If we will do that, if we will take the time to go to God – lifting up our sin to him like the special offering it is – then something amazing will start to happen.  The ugly image of the cross with Jesus nailed to it will change before our eyes.  And beyond it we will begin to glimpse something of the hope, something of the health, something of the wholeness Jesus is promising.
For when sin becomes our hope – then so does Resurrection.
Amen.
¹ Barbara Brown Tayler Speaking of Sin, p. 58
² ibid.
 
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