Deep into Lent are we, and it’s clear that something is coming, as we gather around the images and stories and lessons for today. Something is being forecasted with our readings for today…particularly this strange OT reading about the Israelites in the wilderness. There is a cross coming into view, albeit perhaps fuzzy right now: From our reflections these past weeks on the covenant and the rainbow of Noah, the promise to Sarah and Abraham, the 10 commandments, now we’re still in the wilderness of our Lenten journey, it might be foggy, rainy, but a cross is starting to come into view. We’re not there yet – today it’s this strange, gruesome image of a serpent on a pole…
This OT is worth recounting because it is a snapshot of the entire Old Testament pattern… in Confirmation: “God blesses, people mess up, God gets angry, people repent…” See that here?
· they’re in the wilderness – free at last (God blesses)
· and complaining and tired, they want to go back
· Moses reminds them of the food and how far God has brought them
· “we hate the food”, we would rather be back there!
· God gets angry, sends serpents to bite them
· People cry out for help
· Moses petitions for the people
· God give them the snake on a pole
· Those who look to it are healed
It is a curious story. And I’m convinced that it’s in our lectionary by virtue of our Gospel reading. Because Jesus in the Gospel of John makes a reference to it. Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Humanity be lifted up. Same effect: Those who look to him are healed. There is a cross coming into view.
But let’s stay with the OT in the wilderness. The snake on a pole. God getting angry. I think this story is amazing. It’s entertaining on one level, in its strangeness. But I laugh at it mostly because I can totally relate to complaining in the wilderness. “We hate the food.” (NRSV: “We detest this miserable food.”) They of course are referring to manna, the holiest of holy bible food next to the body and blood of Christ.
Do you ever feel like the Israelites in the wilderness, wanting to go back to the way things used to be? Sure it wasn’t perfect back then, but at least it was better than this?
You might not believe this from me, with all the newer music that we’ve been do—and that most of the time I very much like to do, here—but I just wrote a letter this week to the planners of our Synod Assembly worship: “Can we please sing some of the old songs this year?” My reasoning was that I think we’re scared and hurting as a synod, and we need some comfort, something familiar. And I know that that feeling exists at least among some of us here at SVLC too. And not just at church, right, if I had a nickel for every time I hear (or think) if only we could go back to the way it used to be. “We hate the new food. Why, when I was growing up...” Seriously, I’d be rich.
I laugh when I read this text mostly, I’m afraid, out of discomfort, because it so aptly hits the nail on the head. “God, why did you bring us to this point?! We hate it.”
“God why did you bring us to this point in our lives? WE hate it. We detest this misery.”
And then all of a sudden…snakes!!! Read recent poll of “Things We’re Afraid Of”, 36% of Americans list snakes as #1.
Any chance those snakes are a gift? Like a sharp tone in your mother or father’s voice – a sharpness you never heard before, and frankly it hurts. There’s a bite to it. Any chance those snakes are a gift? When we’re longing for the past, we’re not fully in the present. But as soon as you’ve got a snake slithering toward you, boy, you’re right in the moment! Your head is pulled right out of the clouds of the past, and all your senses are in tact – adrenaline, reflexes all as sharp as your body is possibly able. You are alive—that’s what adrenaline junkies are all about. “Never felt more alive, man!” [Meekest participant on our retreat in January. Has MS. And loves to skydive.]
Any chance those snakes were a gift? God snaps us out of our natural default position to complain (which we often do from the easy chair), to long for something more (especially when we’re relatively safe and wondering “well, how can we get safer”), our natural default position to get nostalgic about the past, to burrow in to what we know…
God snaps us out of that with a bite, a sting, a harsh tone. A then through our tears, with adrenaline pumping and sticking us right smack in the present moment…
…mercy. Grace. Healing comes. Salvation (salvus).
Sometimes we need that jolt to remind us that God is the one who brought us here, God is the one who has never left us. And God is the one who will bring us to the promised land. Sometimes we need that jolt, because we forget. Ever seem like we say the same thing in church, week after week? Because we forget (people mess up) that God has brought us here, that God is the one who has never left us, that God will bring us to the promised land at last.
But there’s a cross coming into view. For Christians, gotta go past the cross to get to the empty tomb.
Anyone who’s gone through surgery knows the pain comes before the healing. (By the way, serpent on the pole, of course is the medical symbol, Vicki painted it.) Those who look to the serpent will be healed. It’s not an idol. If the people think that the snake itself (or the cross itself, for that matter) is the cause of the cure, then it becomes an idol. But if they look to it as a reminder of the mercy and providence and presence of God, then it becomes a holy symbol. If they look through the bronze serpent, just as we look through the cross of Christ, then it is healing. In even and especially the most gruesome and strange symbols—a snake on a pole, a bloody cross—God’s love is poured out, and not just for us, but for all, as John 3 tells us: “God so loved the cosmos.”
The cross is coming into view! It gets harder before it gets easier. In that truth there is grace, there is relief, there is healing. There is salvation.
And even here in the wilderness, Jesus is our rock. AMEN.
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