Fourth Sunday of Lent - Sermon
Sermon
Location Faith Lutheran Church – Date 3/8/2009
Fourth Sunday in Lent – Year B
Primary Text: num 21:4-9, John 3:14-21
A young couple were touring southern Florida and happened to stop at one of the rattlesnake farms along the road. After seeing the sights, they engaged in small talk with the man that handled the snakes.
"Gosh!" exclaimed the new bride. "You certainly have a dangerous job. Don't you ever get bitten by the snakes?"
"Yes, upon rare occasions," answered the handler.
"Well," she continued, "just what do you do when you're bitten by a snake?"
"I always carry a razor-sharp knife in my pocket, and as soon as I am bitten, I make deep criss-cross marks across the fang entry and then suck the poison from the wound."
"What, uh... what would happen if you were to accidentally *sit* on a rattler?" persisted the woman.
"Ma'am," answered the snake handler, "that will be the day I learn who my real friends are."
In our Gospel text for today, we see Jesus referring back to Moses and the serpent in the desert. This is an important story to understand in order to understand Jesus’ point.
In the story the Israelites are still in the wilderness. They have been there for quite a while now. They do not have enough food and water, and the food that they do have they do not like. And so they complain to Moses and God. “Why did you free us from Egypt if we are just going to die here.”
It is tempting to throw out this text as another complaining act by the Israelites. We have defiantly seen this act before. It seems to be a cycle, when things get a little hard they complain and whine. They do not ask for assistance or remember all the assistance they have gotten in the past. Instead, they would rather complain that God and Moses planned this from the beginning, that it was God’s plan for them to become freed from Egypt just to die in the wilderness.
And God’s response is to send poisonous serpents among the Israelites and many people get bit and die. From what we know of the Israelites and from the fact that they were recently complaining about their condition, you would take it that they would then assume that their assumptions were correct, they were meant to die here. However, they respond to this onslaught not with cries of “Why God have you done this? Why has God forsaken us?” Instead, they answer by saying “We have sinned against the Lord by speaking against God and against Moses, please take the serpents away from us.”
Instead of the accusations of abandonment that we would expect we instead get repentance and prayer for removal of the serpents. Then we find the out of the ordinary response of God. God does not remove the serpents. Let me repeat that, God does not remove the serpents. In all the cases before this, the Israelites complain for water and God creates water, they complain for food and God creates food. This time they ask for the serpents to be removed, and God does not do this. Instead of removing the serpents, God has Moses create a bronze serpent on a pole. When the Israelites gaze upon the pole they live. This may seem small, they asked for help and in some way God gave it. But it adds an important distinction. Trouble, pain and death are still in the world, God did not remove the serpents, they are still there. People may still be bitten. But, it is through the action of looking at the serpent on the pole that God had Moses create for them that they will not die, but live.
This is the important thing to remember about Jesus telling this. Christ being raised on the cross does not remove all the evil’s of this world. We still find war, disease, famine, and thirst. Just as the Israelites looked to the serpent to live, we need to look to Christ lifted up on the cross to live. It is interesting to notice that it is to live, not to be healed. All the serpents of this world will still bite us and we will still undergo the pain and suffering that results, but Christ promises that he will never leave us, and will undergo our suffering with us. Christ promises us eternal life. Christ promises that there is nothing in this world that can remove us from the love shown on that cross.
John 3.16, the most widely known bible verse can be seen in many different ways. God so loved the world. We often hear that as showing how much God loved the world. But it can also be seen as God in this way loved the world. Thusly God loved the world. God loved the world not by removing all the snakes from the world, but by raising up Christ on the cross. And by doing so not removing our suffering, but being present with us in our suffering, and so saving us from it.
A quote by Jurgen Moltmann in Douglas John Hall’s The Cross in our Context “To recognize God in the crucified Christ means to grasp the Trinitarian history of God, and to understand oneself and this whole world with Auschwitz and Vietnam, with race-hatred and hunger, as existing in the history of God. God is not dead, death is in God. God suffers by us. [God] suffers with us. Suffering is in God.”
When we suffer, God suffers, God suffers with us, and God takes our suffering. We may suffer but our suffering will not take from us eternal life. When we are hidden in the darkness, Christ light will shine from the cross, and show us the path.
We may drift, we may forget what Christ has done for us. Like the Israelites we may complain about what happens to us. We may be bit by the snakes and serpents of this world. Be we need to remember to trust. The Israelites trusted that they would live by looking at the pole, we trust that we will be given eternal life by Christ raised up on the cross. We trust that Christ’s light shines on our path. We may drift, but Christ will always be there. The snakes may bite us, but Christ will always shine in this world showing us how to trust, how to love.
Let us pray,
God of love and life, we thank you for coming to us and being raised up on the cross to give us eternal life. We thank you for all that you have done for us in this world. We ask you to be with all those who undergo pain and suffering, violence and hatred, sickness and grief. Give all in this world your love and show us your path to peace.
Amen
Location Faith Lutheran Church – Date 3/8/2009
Fourth Sunday in Lent – Year B
Primary Text: num 21:4-9, John 3:14-21
A young couple were touring southern Florida and happened to stop at one of the rattlesnake farms along the road. After seeing the sights, they engaged in small talk with the man that handled the snakes.
"Gosh!" exclaimed the new bride. "You certainly have a dangerous job. Don't you ever get bitten by the snakes?"
"Yes, upon rare occasions," answered the handler.
"Well," she continued, "just what do you do when you're bitten by a snake?"
"I always carry a razor-sharp knife in my pocket, and as soon as I am bitten, I make deep criss-cross marks across the fang entry and then suck the poison from the wound."
"What, uh... what would happen if you were to accidentally *sit* on a rattler?" persisted the woman.
"Ma'am," answered the snake handler, "that will be the day I learn who my real friends are."
In our Gospel text for today, we see Jesus referring back to Moses and the serpent in the desert. This is an important story to understand in order to understand Jesus’ point.
In the story the Israelites are still in the wilderness. They have been there for quite a while now. They do not have enough food and water, and the food that they do have they do not like. And so they complain to Moses and God. “Why did you free us from Egypt if we are just going to die here.”
It is tempting to throw out this text as another complaining act by the Israelites. We have defiantly seen this act before. It seems to be a cycle, when things get a little hard they complain and whine. They do not ask for assistance or remember all the assistance they have gotten in the past. Instead, they would rather complain that God and Moses planned this from the beginning, that it was God’s plan for them to become freed from Egypt just to die in the wilderness.
And God’s response is to send poisonous serpents among the Israelites and many people get bit and die. From what we know of the Israelites and from the fact that they were recently complaining about their condition, you would take it that they would then assume that their assumptions were correct, they were meant to die here. However, they respond to this onslaught not with cries of “Why God have you done this? Why has God forsaken us?” Instead, they answer by saying “We have sinned against the Lord by speaking against God and against Moses, please take the serpents away from us.”
Instead of the accusations of abandonment that we would expect we instead get repentance and prayer for removal of the serpents. Then we find the out of the ordinary response of God. God does not remove the serpents. Let me repeat that, God does not remove the serpents. In all the cases before this, the Israelites complain for water and God creates water, they complain for food and God creates food. This time they ask for the serpents to be removed, and God does not do this. Instead of removing the serpents, God has Moses create a bronze serpent on a pole. When the Israelites gaze upon the pole they live. This may seem small, they asked for help and in some way God gave it. But it adds an important distinction. Trouble, pain and death are still in the world, God did not remove the serpents, they are still there. People may still be bitten. But, it is through the action of looking at the serpent on the pole that God had Moses create for them that they will not die, but live.
This is the important thing to remember about Jesus telling this. Christ being raised on the cross does not remove all the evil’s of this world. We still find war, disease, famine, and thirst. Just as the Israelites looked to the serpent to live, we need to look to Christ lifted up on the cross to live. It is interesting to notice that it is to live, not to be healed. All the serpents of this world will still bite us and we will still undergo the pain and suffering that results, but Christ promises that he will never leave us, and will undergo our suffering with us. Christ promises us eternal life. Christ promises that there is nothing in this world that can remove us from the love shown on that cross.
John 3.16, the most widely known bible verse can be seen in many different ways. God so loved the world. We often hear that as showing how much God loved the world. But it can also be seen as God in this way loved the world. Thusly God loved the world. God loved the world not by removing all the snakes from the world, but by raising up Christ on the cross. And by doing so not removing our suffering, but being present with us in our suffering, and so saving us from it.
A quote by Jurgen Moltmann in Douglas John Hall’s The Cross in our Context “To recognize God in the crucified Christ means to grasp the Trinitarian history of God, and to understand oneself and this whole world with Auschwitz and Vietnam, with race-hatred and hunger, as existing in the history of God. God is not dead, death is in God. God suffers by us. [God] suffers with us. Suffering is in God.”
When we suffer, God suffers, God suffers with us, and God takes our suffering. We may suffer but our suffering will not take from us eternal life. When we are hidden in the darkness, Christ light will shine from the cross, and show us the path.
We may drift, we may forget what Christ has done for us. Like the Israelites we may complain about what happens to us. We may be bit by the snakes and serpents of this world. Be we need to remember to trust. The Israelites trusted that they would live by looking at the pole, we trust that we will be given eternal life by Christ raised up on the cross. We trust that Christ’s light shines on our path. We may drift, but Christ will always be there. The snakes may bite us, but Christ will always shine in this world showing us how to trust, how to love.
Let us pray,
God of love and life, we thank you for coming to us and being raised up on the cross to give us eternal life. We thank you for all that you have done for us in this world. We ask you to be with all those who undergo pain and suffering, violence and hatred, sickness and grief. Give all in this world your love and show us your path to peace.
Amen
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