Today’s gospel text is eight verses but one of them - John 3:16 - is one of the best-known or most familiar and easily recognized verses in Scripture. It’s one that shows up on car decals and posters at football games. Given its prominence in Christianity and culture, I invite you to listen to this passage as if you’ve never heard it before and see if you hear anything new today.
John begins with a reference to the Old Testament story from Numbers that we heard just before the gospel. But in contrast to John 3:16, it’s one of the lesser known stories of the Bible.
Whining like children who open a full pantry and say there isn’t anything to eat, the Israelites were grumbling and griping about the divine gift of manna they’d been given by God to sustain them and nourish them in the desert. But instead of calling the people to God and telling them he has heard their murmuring, as he had in Exodus 16, this time God responds to their complaints by setting serpents loose in their midst. It wasn’t their complaints that vexed God; it was their disregard for God’s gifts and the care God had provided.
Even so, it is hard to hear how God apparently had gotten fed up with their whining. I don’t know how to reconcile my understanding of who God is – One who loves God’s people unconditionally – with a God who swore never to destroy the earth again but apparently was ok making it more deadly or lethal. Maybe you have asked that same question.
I am comforted that the story doesn’t end with the vipers biting people and poisoning them with stinging venom or with the deaths that resulted from the serpents’ attacks.
Because when the people turned to Moses and confessed they had offended the Lord, Moses went to God and God instructed him to make a figure of a viper and place it on a pole, or a standard, and to tell people who were bitten to look up at the viper to be healed.
So when one cried out, “Ouch! One of those poisonous serpents just bit me” the response from God was not, “How could you be so stupid to let one of them bite you?” Instead, God offers healing and says, “Let me help you. Look at the serpent on the pole and be healed.”
I think it’s important God doesn’t respond by killing all the serpents or telling God’s people to barricade or hide themselves away from the vipers either. The people have to live in the world the way it is.
Our sin — the ways we turn in on ourselves and disregard God — has consequences. We face judgment and even death when we turn away from God and focus on ourselves. And we must confront our sin. We must confess and name the ways we participate in evil and perpetuate injustice.
The Good News is that while God doesn’t magically erase what we have done or the evil it has unleashed, God does make a way forward for us to find forgiveness and healing. God leads us out of the way of death and into the way of life.
Again and again, God transforms the things that bring death and kill us, and brings healing and life. The venomous serpent becomes a lifegiving sign for God’s people. The cross, an instrument of execution under the Roman emperor, becomes the open arms of God, welcoming all to know God.
In Jesus, God comes among us that we will know salvation, and the way of abundant life, through him. The life God offers isn’t about fire insurance against damnation, or even a heavenly, never-ending life. It is about being invited into the same relationship of mutual love and self-giving that we witness in Jesus’ own relationship to the Father.
In John’s gospel the way to the Father comes through the crucifixion, the resurrection and the ascension. It takes all of the pieces, not just the ones that are joyful and promise-filled, but the ones that bear agony and pain too.
Sometimes we go to great lengths to avoid looking at the things that bring death or kill, and we cannot imagine new possibilities. All we can see is the death in front of us. But John shows us that they are all parts of a whole, where God invites us to participate, to look up and see the transformation God is bringing.
Let us pray…
Good and gracious God,
Thank you for your Son Jesus who was lifted up on the cross to die and lifted up in the ascension to be with You. Thank you for loving us and giving life to all who turn to him in faith.
Give us courage to confess and name our sin and brokenness that we may be transformed by the gift of your love.
Amen.
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