“The Serpent Cross” John 3:13-17
Pastor Thomas Kock 1st Sunday in Lent March 1, 2009
Come, Holy Spirit! Fill the hearts of Your people, and kindle in us the fire of Your love. Amen. The word of God for our consideration today is found in the book of John chapter 3.
13 No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man. 14 Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15 that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. 16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. In the name of Jesus, who was lifted up for you and me, my dear brothers and sisters in Christ.
One of my favorite movie lines was, “Snakes! Why does it have to be snakes?” Can you name that movie? Yeah, I’m guessing that a few of you recognize that as a line from the original Indiana Jones movie. It’s been years since I’ve seen it, so my memory’s a bit foggy on it, but as I remember it, he was going down into a pyramid or something, and down on the floor of it was just a mass of writhing snakes. Although Jones was pretty fearless, he hated snakes. And, I’m guessing that many of us would stand next to him, hating snakes, too.
But I bet you and I don’t hate snakes as much as those Israelites whom we read about in our Old Testament reading. The Israelites had been wandering in the desert for almost 40 years; it was finally time for them to head towards that promised land. But as they went, they grew impatient, complaining against Moses and against God: "Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the desert? There is no bread! There is no water! And we detest this miserable food!" (Numbers 21:5b NIV) That “miserable food,” by the way, was the manna which God faithfully and miraculously provided for them to eat. Can you imagine? They were complaining about that!
Oh, I’m guessing we probably can imagine. “I’m sick of my wardrobe; I have nothing to wear.” Who made sure you and I have those clothes? And how many of them do we have? “We never have anything good to eat!” Who made sure you had food? And, how many times didn’t we have many options, great variety? Hmm. Sounds an awful lot like those Israelites, doesn’t it?
So, God confronted the Israelites concerning their sinfulness. He did so by sending poisonous snakes amongst them, and those snakes bit many, and many died. Can you imagine how those Israelites must have hated snakes? Can you imagine how those Israelites must have feared snakes? And, how do you keep a snake out of a tent? Can you imagine if you were a young mother, and your child was asleep? Could you feel comfortable laying your child down to take a nap, with those snakes all over the place? Oh, this must have been so bad! They must have simply hated the snakes!
But, it did what God wanted it to do – it caused the Israelites to see their sinfulness. They went to Moses with repentant hearts, and they asked Moses to pray for them and to take the snakes away.
God’s answer to Moses’ prayer: “Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live." (Numbers 21:8 NIV) Seriously?!? The answer to snakebite is … to look at a bronze snake, hung up on a pole? What you loathe the most, (i.e. the snakes) you have to look at an image of that thing in order to be healed? It doesn’t seem to make any sense? (By the way. Some commentators think that the poisonous snakes were bronze-colored, which would make the connection all the more clear.) Can you imagine the people thinking, “A snake! Why did it have to be a snake?”
But it worked! When the people looked to that bronze snake, they were healed. Why? Because God’s promise was there! God promised that they’d be healed by looking at that snake; they were. It seemed crazy; it worked. Looking at what they loathed, brought them life.
What ought you and I to loathe more than anything else? It’s sin, isn’t it? Think about it. Before Adam and Eve sinned, there was no death in the world. Can you imagine how much better life would be if we didn’t have the constant specter of death looming over us? Sin is what brought death to the world.
In fact, everything that’s bad about the world has its roots in sin. Tension amongst neighbors or friends or relatives – it has its roots in sin. The pain that comes from broken relationships; what caused those relationships to fracture? Whether it was unfaithfulness, or anger, or lying, or laziness, finally we could summarize it by saying that the relationship fractured because of sin. The challenges of health: heart attacks, arthritis, diabetes, bad backs, failing eyesight, the sense of hearing going away – none of those things would be on this earth if there was no sin, because all those things are part of the effects of sin.
And of course we haven’t even discussed the worst effect of sin. The worst effect of sin is that the wages of sin is death. No, not just temporal death, but eternal death. We need to hear it clearly, and know it well: because of our sinfulness, you and I deserve to be sent to hell forever. Yes, we deserve to be condemned, to have an eternity of suffering. That’s the “wage” which our sin has earned. Could there be anything in the world which we ought to loathe more than sin? It has poisoned our life now, and would poison it forever.
So what does God do? God takes our sins and puts them on … Jesus. In a weird sense, Jesus is declared to be the biggest sinner of all, because the sins of the world are charged to His account.
And then what happens? Then He’s lifted up! Like that bronze serpent was hung up on a pole, so Jesus was “hung up” on the cross. He was crucified. Why? Because our sins had been charged to His account. What we loathe the most had been placed on Him.
And so God wants us to do … what? Why, of course – God wants us to look to Him for healing! Yes, God wants us to look to “the world’s biggest sinner” for … healing. And what are the results? “…that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.” (John 3:15 NIV) Just as looking at the bronze snake, believing God’s promise, brought healing, so looking at Jesus, hung on that cross, brings us healing. It seems counterintuitive, almost crazy. But it’s God’s way. And because it’s God’s way, it works!
Thus, and so much, did God love the world! So much that He sent His One and Only Son, that everyone who believes in Him would NEVER perish, but have life eternal! We see that love of God at its apex as we see Jesus lifted up, on that cross, paying for the sins of the world.
You know, as I look at the serpent cross, I don’t find it to be all that appealing. Visually, it doesn’t do much for me. Do some of you feel the same? I wonder if part of that is because of what the snake represents? It represents poison, it represents death. And, that’s no fun to look at!
And yet this cross is precious to us! Why so? Because this cross reminds us that Jesus took our poison. Jesus took the punishment that we deserved. HE was hung up on that cross, not you or me. And by doing so, He healed you and me, healed us forever. Amen.