Messages, Meditations, and Musings on the Life of Faith by Rev. Dr. Scott E. Olson, Interim Pastor, Christ Lutheran Church, Preston, MN

Sunday, March 18, 2012

"Look Up and Live": Lent 4B Sermon

Lent 4B
March 18, 2012
“Look Up and Live”
Numbers 21.4-9

Rolf Jacobson, professor of Old Testament at Luther Seminary, says he can’t see anyone preaching on this text from Numbers 21. Well, he’s probably right, but I guess we’ll see about that. However, to give this a fair shot, we need to put the passage in context. The Israelites have been wandering in the wilderness for almost 40 years. God freed them from slavery in Egypt and is leading them to the Promised Land, a land “flowing with milk and honey.” It has taken them 40 years because they didn’t trust God and God is allowing the distrustful generation to die before he brings them there. As is said in some places, “A lot of people are going to have to die for that to happen.” They are getting cranky and impatient because they have to make yet another detour. So is God.

This is the last of the complaint stories and perhaps the worst because they not only complain against Moses, they also complain against God. The manna that God has provided them each day isn’t enough, so they supplement it with “marinated Moses” and “grilled God.” The issue, of course, is a lack of trust in God and God’s promises. They can’t see the end of their journey. They still stand between promise and fulfillment, and the farther they get from Egypt the better it looks, even though most of them have never set foot there. So, the fiery snakes come, and the people immediately see this as a sign of their lack of trust in God. Putting aside for today the very hard nut that God sent the snakes, the presence of the snakes shows their brokenness. Even so, though the Israelites are faithless, God’s shows faithfulness to them and his promise.

What I find important for us here is that God doesn’t take away the snakes; God heals the bites. That doesn’t make any sense to us. Why doesn’t God just take away the snakes and be done with it? Partly, I think in having them look at the serpent on the pole, God wanted them to remember. Not only to remember their brokenness, but also to remember that in the midst of their brokenness they are to trust in God. That’s one reason Jesus picks up this story in his conversation with Nicodemus in John 3. “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up.”

For Jesus in John’s Gospel, being lifted up has a dual meaning: lifted up on the cross and lifted up at the resurrection. We find ourselves bitten by poisonous snakes, some of our own doing, some done to us. Whatever the cause, God enters our brokenness, meets us where we are, and tells us to look and live. We all know that verse, “For God so loved the world, he gave his only Son, so that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.” I like the following one even more: “For God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but so that the world might be saved through him.”

God enters our brokenness through Jesus Christ, takes it upon himself, and lays it on the cross. In doing so, God heals the brokenness in our lives where we need it the most. When we look up at the cross we are reminded of our snaky existence, but we also remember the healing that God provides. These two stories stand between death and life, death of the old way and promise of the new. They are reminders that God will bring us to the place he is leading us, even though we can’t always see it.

One last lesson: in spite of everything the Israelites have done and not done, they persist and will finally enter the Promised Land. God continually works in, with, and through their imperfect lives, bringing about God’s purposes. That was good news for them and it’s good news for us, both in our personal lives and our lives together. We are on a journey, you and I, and we don’t always get it right. When we don’t God, invites us to look up and live, to experience his grace and blessing through his Son Jesus. Look up and live. Amen.

2 comments:

  1. What you wrote in the last paragraph hit home. It is a comfort to know that we can "look up and live".

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