Sermon at Springridge Mennonite Church - Lent IV - Sunday March 26, 2006

Scripture: Numbers 21: 4-9

John 3: 14-21

Title: “Lift high the cross”

- - - - - - - - - - - -

- Today’s old testament scripture reading is a strange story from a scientific point of view.

- The Hebrews are in the desert having fled from the Egyptians.

- They are supposed to be on the road to the promised land.

- They are supposed to be liberated.

- Instead, they are grumbling against God and Moses.

- They don’t trust that God will provide.

- There is no water, there is no food save for this manna stuff and they’re tired of it!

- Faced with this same old, continued grumbling: God grew tired of these complainers and so he sent poisonous snakes among them as a consequence of the verbal venom they were putting out.

- After a few bites the people quickly turned back to God and approached Moses asking him to intercede on their behalf.

- God had mercy and so (this is where the strange part of the story comes in) he had Moses make an image of a snake out of bronze and put it on the end of a stick.

- The text says that “whenever a serpent bit someone, that person would look at the serpent of bronze and live.” (v. 9)

- ....Why an image of a snake? Why not an image of a healing leaf? Or of an eagle which could attack snakes? Or perhaps of a big club which could be used to thump snakes?

- Why a snake?

- Why did God choose to face the Hebrews with an image of that thing which brought about their misery and from which they sought a cure?

- They certainly knew what snakes look like.

- They wanted something that was anti-snake.

- But no. God chose to come up with an image which reminded the people of the outcome of their sin.

- The New Testament reading today is similarly strange. Let me read part of it again.

- “...just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.” (John 3: 14,f)

- The “lifting up” here is also strange.

- The image to us Christians is obvious. Jesus was nailed onto a cross that was lying flat on the ground.

- That cross was then lifted up and set in a vertical position and so Jesus hung until he died.

- This too is not a pretty picture.

- Jesus’ death on the cross is there as a reminder to us of humanity’s sins – sins which prevented the people from heeding his words or believing in the ways he and God were providing for them.

- But through his death Jesus redeemed us from our sins.

- It is still strange that in so many churches we gaze upon this instrument of torture and death which reminds us of humanity’s sinful nature.

- Why don’t we put up pictures of butterflies which remind of us of transformation instead?

- Why don’t we have images of the empty tomb fashioned as jewellery? or wall ornamentation?

- We don’t do we?

- And this is strange.

- Just like the snake on the pole, we look at the thing which brought about so much harm to someone who we profess to be our leader.

- Whenever we gaze at the cross we are brought face to face with our sinfulness and an instrument of punishment.

- Isn’t that weird? Isn’t that awful?

- Yes.

- But then also no.

- By using these symbols God does not let us run away from what scares us.

- God makes us face these uncomfortable things so that we can find healing beyond them or despite them.

- This is a different message than which our culture often gives.

- What we often hear is that we need to get comfortable and one way of doing that is by destroying our enemies, – those (or that) which defeat us.

- We hear a lot of that type of talk from the many sides of the various middle east conflicts. We hear that type of talk from the current US president.

- Many years ago his distant predecessor Abraham Lincoln was faced by an irate critic who said something to the effect that “I believe that we should destroy our enemies, what about you Mr. Lincoln?”

- Lincoln agreed, we should destroy our enemies. But, he added, don’t we destroy our enemies when we make them into our friends?

- The Jesus way of doing things chooses actions beyond the option of annihilation.

- The Jesus way of doing things does not duck around pain; it moves through it and beyond it.

- The Jesus way does not let enemies evoke a retaliatory response of hate (which stems from our own pain) but rather it encourages a defiant response of love.

- The Jesus way does not dominate with power, nor does it get rid of power; rather it serves from a God ordained use of power.

- In the desert, it could be argued, that if God had wiped out all of the snakes that that would have been a wonderful thing.

- But God did not do that. Snakes were a part of his creation. They would continue to be around just as temptation continues to be around.

- Getting rid of all snakes would have offered one solution.

- But something else would have risen to have taken the snakes’ place.

- What God decided to do was to offer his people a way of dealing with the inevitability of being bitten with a reminder of why they were bitten.

- A similar dynamic (of not taking the easy way out) can be seen with how Jesus confronted power.

- He had been tempted to rule over all of the kingdoms of the earth.

- But he rejected this.

- Rather he took the form of a servant:

Then they came to Capernaum; and when he was in the house he asked them, "What were you arguing about on the way?" But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another (about) who was the greatest. He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, "Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all." Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, "Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me." (Mark 9: 33-37)

- Jesus also took hold of the cross (which also is not the easy way out):

He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. (Mark 8:34,f)

- Even though there is a stream of annihilating enemies in scripture stemming from the Old Testament and running through to Revelation, there is also this other stream of meeting that which tempts us, of confronting our sin, and then responding out of a higher calling.

- What is that higher calling? .......... Love? .............Yes.

- But sometimes we aren’t going to know because the holder of that ultimate calling is God and we don’t always know what God’s purposes are.

- I have been here long enough perhaps for you folks to sense that I am not a preacher or a teacher who draws small pictures in black and white.

- Life is often ambiguous and so many times we simply don’t know.

- Even Jesus had these moments. in Gethsemane, on the cross,

- Coming to face the question of why horrible things happen is one of the main foci of Lent.

- During Lent we look at what led to Jesus’ betrayal. We ask questions like, “Why did God allow this to happen?”

- Simply put: during Lent we contemplate evil and brokenness.

- A lot of people can’t handle Lent. It is too dreary.

- They also probably can’t handle thinking about the cross and if there was a snake propped up on the end of a pole, they probably could not handle looking at that either.

- Their preference would likely be to just come to church on Easter Sunday – it so much more cheerier then.

- But to block out evil by ignoring it or trying to destroy it is not a viable solution in our increasingly small planet.

- Killing all the bad guys won’t solve issues because there is a part of us which are the bad guys as well.

- Instead, we need to acknowledge evil, own our complicity in it and then we need to move beyond it.

- That is why a snake was put on display and the people found healing not by looking at it as much as looking beyond it and seeing what God was reminding them of (namely their own sinfulness).

- That is why the cross is on display in so many churches. It too reminds us of human sinfulness but then it also offers direction telling us that death and torture do not have the final say.

- In a sentence: death is a mere comma, a pause, and not a period.

- Evil in the form of snakes and crosses are also mere commas.

- This season of lent gives us opportunity to contemplate our own sinfulness, brokenness and complicity in Jesus’ death on the cross.

- As dreary as such thoughts might be and as this season of the church might be, this time is also a gift,

- For if we can not be in touch with pain, sinfulness and brokenness then we cannot fully appreciate joy , forgiveness and God’s graciousness.

- I would like to end this message with some dairy entries (blog entries) which Tom Fox, the late CPTer posted before his tragic death:

“The ability to feel the pain of another human being is central to any kind of peacemaking work. But this compassion is fraught with peril. A person can experience a feeling of being overwhelmed. Or a feeling of rage and desire for revenge. Or a desire to move away from the pain. Or a sense of numbness that can deaden the ability to feel anything at all.

....How do I stay with the pain and suffering and not be overwhelmed? How do I resist the welling up of rage towards the perpetrators of violence? How do I keep from disconnecting from or becoming numb to the pain?

....After eight months with CPT, I am no clearer than when I began. In fact I have to struggle harder and harder each day against my desire to move away or become numb. Simply staying with the pain of others doesn’t seem to create any healing or transformation. Yet there seems to be no other first step into the realm of compassion than to not step away.”

- Tom Fox likely encountered a lot of pain during his last weeks.

- Since he was not able to avoid it, hopefully he was able to see beyond it to that glory which lay beyond his tormentor’s hands.

- May God have been merciful and may Tom have been able to keep his eyes upon Jesus.

- Amen.

HYMN Folder # 64 “Turn your eyes (upon Jesus)”

"Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in his wonderful face
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim
In the light of his glory and grace"