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.
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