"Serpents in the Wilderness"

Sermon preached by John C. Hall on March 22, 2009

Texts

Numbers 21:4-9

From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; but the people became impatient on the way.  The people spoke against God and against Moses, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we detest this miserable food.”  Then the LORD sent poisonous serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many Israelites died.  The people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned by speaking against the LORD and against you; pray to the LORD to take away the serpents from us.” So Moses prayed for the people.  And the LORD said to Moses, “Make a poisonous serpent, and set it on a pole; and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live.”  So Moses made a serpent of bronze, and put it upon a pole; and whenever a serpent bit someone, that person would look at the serpent of bronze and live.

John 3:14

And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

The Israelites have escaped from slavery. They’re on their way to the Promised Land. But to get to the Promised Land, they have to make it through the wilderness.  And during this passage, they get sick of eating manna. They complain about the food.  This, apparently, is a very serious offense.  God sends poisonous serpents that bite the people. Many of them die.

But that’s not the strangest part. God tells Moses to make a serpent, and raise it on pole, so when the people look at the serpent they’ll be healed. A poisonous serpent for healing? Today, we’d expect Moses to hold up an aloe plant, or some garlic wrapped in seaweed.

You might be saying to yourself that this story is where the medical symbol comes from — a serpent wrapped around a pole. But it’s not. The medical symbol comes from the Greek healer Aesculapius. But that’s another story.

How can a poisonous snake become an image for healing? Why is a crucified Jesus an image for eternal life?

We tend to organize our experience into good and bad. Some things go right, some things go wrong.  There are problems and solutions, curses and blessings. But is our experience really that clear cut? Things that look good at first often end up having an unexpected downside.  And painful experiences, what looks like disaster, can lead to unexpected blessings.

For example, we feel this economic crisis we’re in as a bad thing. It’s destroyed a lot of wealth. People have lost their jobs. At the same time, without the slowdown and collapse we might not yet even know about all the corruption and bad behavior that was so easily overlooked when the markets were all going up. Apparently, it took a 50% drop in the stock market to get our attention. Bernard Madoff and the hedge fund managers at AIG might not have been exposed. The damage could have been a lot worse without the recession.

But let’s look at this at a personal level. We are anxious creatures. You’ve heard me say that our fear is very often out of proportion to the real danger. On the other hand, without some anxiety or challenge we get bored. Fear is something we have to interpret.  The thing we fear — a serpent in the wilderness — can also be a source of healing and life. It can be a teacher. It can lead us to real spiritual treasure. 

Here’s a very simple, homey example.  Some years ago, our Deacons decided it would be good to get to know each other better — to feel closer together. They didn’t want to just show up on Sunday morning and go through the mechanics. So at one meeting the Deacons talked about this. How can we bond more? The idea also made everyone a little nervous.  What were we getting into?  We don’t want to push too hard for emotional intimacy. No one wants to pressure people to talk about things they don’t want to talk about. The Deacons felt this ambivalence. And that’s how adventures in life are. Anything that really calls out to us and draws us into new territory feels dangerous. It’s exciting; it might be the way to the Promised Land. But there might be a serpent out there.

So the Deacons decided to have some special meetings in people’s homes, including potluck suppers. People talked about relatively safe stuff — their families, work, vacations, their kids’ sports and concerts — the good things in our lives. But after a few of these home meetings, it seemed that we were losing interest. We weren’t as engaged as we wanted to be.

Then, one of the Deacons took a risk and said, “These conversations aren’t doing what we wanted them to do. They feel kind of superficial” It was a daring statement. But everyone agreed. So, we decided, instead of sticking with what’s going well in our lives, what if we talked about worries?  What if we talked about what’s dragging us down? What if we talked about sadness, and disappointments? Watch out for the serpents!

But we did that. We talked about worries, sadness, and disappointments. Suddenly these meetings were very different. Now there was a powerful healing spirit in the room. There was love in the room. And then the Deacons reflected back on this whole exercise. When the agenda was to talk about what we liked in our lives, that brought with it some group pressure to sound happy, even some competition.  It didn’t bring us together the way that vulnerability can. No one likes being vulnerable, but that’s how we are, and letting that vulnerability appear undermines competition.

Now, let’s look at the gospel lesson. Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness [to save the Israelites] so the Son of Man, [Jesus] must be lifted up [on the cross] so that whoever believes in him will have eternal life.

The Christian faith invites us to look at Jesus on the cross in a special way — as an expression of God’s love. I know it sounds bizarre — a bleeding, dying man nailed to a cross as a sing of love.  Many people can’t see it that way. But in the tradition of Christian spirituality, this is what we’re invited to do with that image.

I can’t tell you exactly where in your life to apply this, but I can tell you it’s worth applying it. Try this. Try to put aside the question of whether the image of Jesus on the cross is a bad image or a good one. Try not to ask if it speaks to you, or should speak to you. Don’t judge the image. Instead, just for a moment, try assuming that in this image God speaking to you — not where things are going well for you, but in some struggle or pain or sadness or worry that you feel in your life.

Where, in your life, do you feel just a little like Jesus on the cross. If Jesus on the cross is an image of God on the cross, what is God saying to you?