Just As Moses Lifted Up the Serpent

Crucifixion 
Paul Chester

John 3:14-21  4 Lent March 11, 2018

 

The Book of Numbers is a book which shows

to its readers or hearers how God was present

with the Israelites even during 

their 40 years in the wilderness.

 

In this time in the wilderness, God is an unpredictable

and sometimes dangerous character, 

and in this early stage 

of their relationship between the Israelites and the 

all-mighty and powerful creator of the universe,

the people aren’t really sure how to handle this new relationship.

 

Some people have likened dealing with God in this time

to dealing with a nuclear reactor.

If everything goes well, things are wonderful and 

great power is harnessed. But if one piece is forgotten or overlooked,

it’s disaster for everyone involved.

 

It’s main character in the book is Moses.

The one with the direct link to God.

God and Moses and the people had a complicated relationship.

God would talk to Moses, Moses would tell the people what God said.

The people would talk to Moses,

and Moses would tell God what the people said

 

In churches we were told to avoid triangulation as much as possible.

Having a conversation with someone through another person

to try and influence their behavior is not a good idea.

But right at the beginning, our first biblical hero is caught in the worst one.

 

By the time of Numbers, the Israelites

had been out in the wilderness for a few years.

The miracle of the Red Sea was a distant memory to some of them.

And the people were cranky and frustrated.

“Why did we ever leave Egypt” they said over and over.

“Oh, we should have stayed in Egypt.  

Things were so much better there.”

Meaning while they were slaves to the Egyptians.

The people turn on Moses and his brother Aaron repeatedly.

Then God would threaten to do something horrible to the people

and then Moses would beg God not to do it.

And God would usually give in.

And this would be repeated over and over.

It was not a healthy relationship.

In Chapter 21, which we read today,

Moses and the Israelites find themselves again by the Red Sea.

Where it all started, where God had done such amazing things for them.

But instead of remembering God’s saving acts,

the people again start whining and crying,

“Why have you brought us up out of Egypt, to die?

We used to have food there.

We hate this manna that you’ve given us.”

In other words, we have nothing to eat . . .

and we don’t like it anyway. Like toddlers.

 

Finally, the story says, God had had it.

The people had forgotten about what he had done at the Red Sea.

And they insulted food that God has made them.

The nuclear reactor was springing a leak.

So God released poisonous snakes and the people

were bitten and many of them died.

The people begged Moses to go back and tell God they were sorry

and they asked Moses to ask God to take away the serpents.

 

Now, I always ask, “did God actually send snakes to them?

Or were God’s chosen people having such a terrible time

and they reasoned that God’s anger with them was the cause?”

This is something I debate whenever we read the Hebrew Scriptures.

Regardless  --  Where the snakes came from

is not the most important part of this story.

The remedy is the most important part.

 

After the snakes, Moses went back to God and,

asked God to take the snakes away and of course, God gave in.

But the remedy was unusual, a paradox really, a mystery.

The people wanted God to “take away the serpents from us”

But God did not just take the serpents away.

God doesn’t even make the serpents stop biting them.

Deliverance does not come in the way that they expected.

 

The remedy was this:

God tells Moses to make another poisonous serpent --  

a permanent reminder of this episode with the snakes --

and set it on a pole and raise it up in front of the people.

Moses did it, he made the serpent out of bronze and put it on a pole.

It doesn’t go into any detail about how Moses established 

a bronze workshop in the middle of the desert.

Regardless, he made this bronze snake on a stick and

Whenever those who were bitten and destined

for death looked at the serpent, they would live.

 

God didn’t take the serpents away.

The snakes didn’t stop biting,

the remedy wasn’t to remove the evil.

The remedy was to look at the evil,

see the problem, remember the pain, and then they would live.

The only remedy was for them to look at the snake that bit them.

 

In the John story, Jesus tells Nicodemus

that he will be like that snake, he will be lifted up

so that we can look at him.

Jesus, on the cross, is lifted up, so we can look at the snake of violence

and in the same way, we will live.

 

We have lived with Jesus death and the cross

as a symbol for so long, and we have tamed and 

domesticated it so much, that many people forget what it was:

it was an instrument of torture, capital punishment, 

a public display of the power which some people have

to control and subdue, to silence, and oppress others.

The cross is a symbol of our violence towards others.

 

It’s violence that still used today to the same ends.

Like in war, when we dehumanize others in order

to feel good about killing them.

In the systemic racism that has existed in our country

since its foundation and still drives our economy and function.

In mass incarceration of large portions of our population,

in our stubborn refusal in this country to join most of the rest of the

developed world and abolish the death penalty,

In our neglect and suspicion of the poor around us.

In our hatred of immigrants, which seems to rise

to ugly levels during election years.

In our worship of guns and when we turn our head 

and shrug our shoulders at the gun violence in this country 

as if there is nothing we can do about it an we just have to live with the killing.

This is the same violence that we see represented

in the cross of Jesus: violence that dominates and oppresses.

 

And like the Israelites blamed God for the poisonous snakes,

The church has often said that Jesus died on the cross

to satisfy God’s anger at us for our sins.

That makes it easier for us to take, as if it was all God’s

idea and doing.

 

But the cross was not God’s invention, it was our invention.

Humans made this method of torture and have made

other, countless methods of torture too.

God did not kill his son to satisfy God’s wrath,

God heard our wrath. God heard our constant 

request for someone’s blood --  And gave us his own blood instead.

God said, “You want someone to die? I’ll die for you!”

 

God’s remedy for all this violence and blood lust was

not to just take it away and pretend it wasn’t there.

Instead, God lifted it up, made it the central symbol of our

religion, a constant reminder of what we are capable of.

 

Like that serpent in the wilderness,

the remedy to our evil is to look at it, recognize it

deal with it, acknowledge it as a society,

as a country, as a whole species.

To look at the violence that we cause, aid, abet,

demand, ignore, and avoid.

And maybe one day, we will put an end to it.

 

As Moses lifted the serpent in the wilderness,

Christ has been lifted up on the cross for us.

Look at the cross, look into the snake of human violence that bites us all.

Because deep in that cross is also God’s power of resurrection,

God’s power to make life again.

 

Because, in spite of all we can do and have done to each other,

in spite of the violence, in spite of the hatred,

and cries for blood, and apathy, and greed, and unchecked privilege,

in spite of our comfort with other people’s suffering,

 

God still so loved this world that he gave his only son

to die for us, in front of us, at our own hands.

In order that one day, we, as the human race,

will really learn the lessons of the cross,

and maybe, one day, the world might choose life instead of death.