Snakes in the Desert -- A Lenten Lectionary Reflection
Snakes in the Desert –
Thank God for the Cure
We seem to live in a world of
scarcity. We feel as if there simply isn’t
enough to go around, and as a result we either cry foul or hoard. When there is scarcity we tend to focus on
ourselves and find little room for others.
But when it comes to the grace and mercy of God, do we truly face a
reality that is marked by scarcity? Or,
is the mercy of God available to us in abundance?
As we continue the Lenten journey we’re
reminded on occasion of Jesus’ journey in the desert, or as in Numbers, the
desert journey of the people of Israel.
In both cases provision was made, but in Numbers, at least some of the
people weren’t satisfied. They were
impatient and they despised the provisions given. Is this true of us? Are we patient when it comes to the things of
God? Are we willing to take the long
road or are we determined to take the short cut? Our texts this week focus both on the reality
of sin – disobedience, resistance to God, etc. – and of course the abundance of
God’s grace.
There is a very clear link between
Numbers 21 and John 3, but all three texts speak of the means by which God
heals and redeems. In Numbers 21 we read
another account of the seemingly fruitless journey of the Hebrews through the
desert toward the Promised Land. In
this case they are marching from Mt. Hor toward the Promised Land. They take the Reed Sea Road and take the long
way around Edom, but as the journey continued, they got tired and began to
complain. They began to criticize both
Moses and Yahweh. Neither God nor Moses
seem to have fulfilled the promises they had made earlier, and so the people
were ready to cast off both of them and find a new candidate who could give
them what they wanted. Obviously they had been lured into the desert
on pretense so that God might kill them.
It’s clear that this group of people didn’t really trust Yahweh. Despite the parting of the sea and the
provision of food, this had on long enough.
Perhaps the earlier “miracles” were done to gain their confidence so
they might go where they shouldn’t.
There’s a side of God that gets exposed here that’s not
pretty. We’ve been told before that God
is a jealous God, and sometimes God, in this telling anyway, can get impatient
as well. So, God sends poisonous snakes
into the camp that bite the people and many die. It’s not Satan that does this; it’s God. How do you feel about this presentation of
God? Does it fit with how you view God? I’m not comfortable with it, but here it is
for us to make sense of. We can, and
probably should, chalk this up to a developing understanding of God. But, maybe we can take this as a reminder
that living with a dualist understanding of reality where we’re pawns of two
powers seeking to control our lives has problems of its own.
However we resolve the tension in this presentation of God’s actions,
the people get the message and go to Moses and seek his intercession with
God. Despite the fact that they had been
criticizing him and rejecting his leadership, they seem to believe that Moses
is the one to go to get this thing stopped.
They tell Moses – we admit it, we’ve sinned by speaking against you and
against Yahweh. We repent, so tell
Yahweh to send these snakes away. And so
Moses prays, and the Lord says – okay, here’s the deal. You make an image of a poisonous snake, put
it on a pole and when people who’ve been bitten by the snakes see it, they’ll
live. And so Moses does what Yahweh
prescribes, and we get the symbol for medicine, and the people who are bitten
look upon it and live. It’s that simple
– look at the totem and you’ll be healed.
But keep this image in mind, because we’ll return to it.
In Ephesians 2, the author of this text (whether it’s Paul or
someone else is really irrelevant at this point) tells the readers that they
were once dead in their sins – they’d been bitten by the snake. They had done the wrong things. Their lives had been characterized by
disobedience. As a result they were
heading toward punishment (the snakes again?), but things had changed and all
of this was now in the past. Why? The reason why things had changed was because
“God is rich in mercy.” We read: “He brought us to life with Christ while we
were dead as a result of those things that we did wrong. He did this because of his great love for
us. You are saved by God’s grace!” (vss.4-6 CEB). God then lifts us up to the
heavenly realm so we might sit alongside Jesus and with God so that future
generations will know of God’s grace and goodness.
In Ephesians there definitely is the hint of judgment – we’re
dead in our sins after all – but we don’t hear anything about God sending
snakes to kill us, nor do we have to look at a bronze snake to be delivered,
nor do we need an intercessor. We simply
need to trust in God and receive the grace that God offers, in apparent
abundance. Salvation, this freedom from
death, is a gift that we receive by faith.
It can’t be possessed, just received.
We can’t be proud of this accomplishment – there’s no place for
self-righteousness, no place for moralism.
We can’t go into the public square and tell the people they we have the
truth and that we are righteous – no we can’t do that, we can only recognize
our own need of God’s grace so that we can be present in the world in a way
that is redemptive. If we recognize our
need for grace, then we’re in a position to engage in the good works that God
has provided for us as a way of life in the world.
In this gospel reading we have before us one of the most
famous of all texts. It’s so famous that
one need only put it on big piece of paper and hold it up in the end zone
during the Super Bowl and everyone will get the message – God loves the world
in Christ. Yes, I’m talking about John
3:16. But our passage doesn’t begin and
end with this one text. No, we start
with a reference to Numbers 21. Even as
Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so must the Human One, the Son of
Man, be lifted up. This is the one we
must look to be healed. Believe in him,
and you will have eternal life. That eternal
life needn’t be limited to the “sweet bye and bye,” it can include living into
the abundance that God’s grace, mercy, and love – now and forever. Everyone who believes in this one through
whom God expresses love for the world, will know this grace. God, we’re told isn’t interested in
judgment. Oh judgment happens, but that’s
not what God desires. No, God desires to
reconcile all things and all persons.
There is a dualism here, though.
There are those who believe and those who don’t; there are those who
walk in the light, and those who walk in darkness, those who live into the
works of God and those who inhabit the works of evil. Christ’s presence brings light that exposes
this evil. Those who embrace the light
that is Christ, their actions will express the nature of God.
I return to the question of scarcity and abundance. Too often we in the church believe that God’s
grace is a scarce commodity. We want to
control it. We want to own it and make
it our own. We set the rules and the
regulations, but it’s clear that this is not the truth. The mercy and love of God is one of
abundance. God can work with us and
through us so that this grace gets expressed in the world, but we don’t control
it. It flows abundantly. When we try to dam it up, God’s grace just
breaks through our meager dams, like flood waters breaking through a
levee.
As we continue this Lenten journey toward the Cross and from
it to the Resurrection, may we receive this sign of God’s love and lift it up
that it might be the means of blessing to all.
As for the snakes in the desert – they’re no longer a problem, unless we
let them be a problem!
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