High and Lifted Up
Most of us are familiar with the symbol of the American Medical Association… the staff or pole with a snake curled around it. Many of us who are Christian would like to believe that it came from the story of Moses that Ellen read to us today… the story of Israelites being healed by looking at the snake on a pole. In reality, the symbol derives from Greek and Roman mythology and is called the staff or rod of Aesculapius, an ancient god of medicine who was known for his gentle and humane remedies. There is no record of a story such as the one with Moses and the poisonous snakes with the god Aesculapius… only that he was humane in his treatment of those who came to him… even those who were mentally ill. He did have several children and you will recognize the names of two of them: Hygieia, the goddess of health, who gave her name to the word “hygiene,” and Panaceia, the goddess of healing, who gave her name to the universal remedy called a “panacea.”
Still, the symbol is a good one for understanding this story of Moses… though perhaps not the background leading up to it. The children of Israel were grumbling… as they seemed to do every day in the wilderness… grumbling about the lack of food… or the bad food …the manna, perhaps… that they had to eat. Apparently, God got tired of listening, so the poisonous snakes appeared. Actually, the Hebrew says that they were flaming snakes, not poisonous ones… fiery serpents to be exact… but people died from being bitten by them. Needless to say, the grumbling stopped… for the children of Israel quickly figured out that there were worse things than no food… or bad food. After some of them died from these snake bites, they came to Moses and asked him to intercede on their behalf, which he did. God told him to make a bronze serpent and put it on a pole… a bronze serpent… which was appropriate, for in direct sunlight… or even by candlelight… it would look like it was on fire. When the children of Israel who had been bitten by the poisonous snakes looked up at this serpent on a pole, they were healed.
There are several things that I want to draw to your attention about this story of Moses that Ellen read from the Old Testament. First, recognize that the fiery snakes… the perceived evil that came from the outside… came to the Israelites as a result of the discontent that was inside them… so the true origins of the evil were within the people themselves. How much of the evil in this world today comes from… originates… within… from inside ourselves? How often does our own discontent leave the door open for evil to enter in? How many thefts occur because people are not satisfied with what they have? How many murders are committed because someone wants something… or someone… that belongs to someone else? How many of the Ten Commandments are broken out of self-interest… instead of a genuine interest in others… in those whom Christ commanded us to serve?
Secondly, the cure for the evil was for those who had been bitten to look up at the bronze serpent… the fiery panacea… this object of healing… of salvation… on a pole. How often is the cure for our own discontent… or own misdeeds… to simply look up… and see our own salvation… our Savior… the One who died for us… lifted up on a tree?
This is the time of year when I struggle the most to communicate the basic message of the gospel. I struggle with it because I know with a piercing clarity that I have no power to make you see the truth of the gospel. God will reveal it to you in his own time, if he hasn’t done so already. I can stand here and talk about it until I am blue in the face… and it can still be totally obscure. Some of you know this already, but I will tell the story again. I went to Sunday School every Sunday as a child. I went to church every Sunday as a child. Until I was eighteen years old, it was an unbreakable pattern, but I still did not understand the truth of the gospel. Even as an adult, I went to church and did not understand it. This year… in fact, next month… I celebrate fifteen years since God first revealed the truth of the gospel to me… and I still cry sometimes for the forty years that I spent sitting in a pew not understanding. And yet, the entire truth of the gospel is summed up in one verse… the verse that has often been called “the Bible in a nutshell”… “For God so loved the world…” Come on… you know it… say it with me… “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” “Indeed, God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world… but in order that the world through him might be saved.” Not just you… not just me… but the world. And more than world… the Greek word is cosmos… “that the cosmos through him might be saved.” You see, it’s not a “me and Jesus” scenario… it never was. It is all of us together… through his death… through his resurrection… that we might all be saved.
This passage from John comes at the end of a conversation that Jesus has with Nicodemus, a Pharisee who came to see him at night so he would not be seen talking to Jesus by others. At the conclusion of his conversation, during which Jesus talked to him about being born again, Nicodemus said to him, "How can these things be?" Jesus answered him, "Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things? Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things?”
“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Indeed God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world through him might be saved.” Notice that the passage does not say “that the world through him will be saved.” It says “that the world through him might be saved.” The possibility exists. The possibility exists that we might all be saved. And the possibility exists only because God sent his Son. Jesus came into the world to save sinners… and not just a few sinners, but all sinners. And God’s covenant, as we learned in the story with Noah, is with all living things… the entire cosmos. The entire cosmos can be saved… but only because Jesus came to earth… and only because Jesus died.
Jesus’ death and his resurrection are inextricably entwined. His resurrection means nothing without his death… and his death has no meaning without the resurrection. If Jesus did not die, then he was not truly human and we, as humans, have no hope. Only because he truly died can we believe that we, as humans have hope for the future. On the other hand, if Jesus was totally human and not divine, then he could not take on the sin of the world… absolving us of the condemnation that comes from sin. For the only sacrifice that is acceptable to God is a perfect sacrifice… the sacrifice of One who is perfect… blameless and without sin. Only in his perfection can Jesus atone for our sin and lift us from the depths of hell to the throne of God… for scripture tells us that the wages of sin is death. And, if God did not raise Jesus from the dead, then there is no victory over sin and death… and no hope for eternal live in the presence of God. Because he lives, we too live. And all of this, as Jesus told Nicodemus, comes through faith.
We don’t know what happened to Nicodemus after than encounter with Jesus. We do know that Nicodemus was with Joseph of Arimathea when he went to ask Pilate for the body of Jesus after his crucifixion. It was Nicodemus who brought a hundred pounds of myrrh and aloes to embalm his body. Did he know the truth then? Had God revealed it to him? Why else would he be at that place… at that time… he who had first come to Jesus under cover of darkness? Was he now a child of the light?
John says, “And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed.” Like Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, we hide from Godwhen we know we have done wrong. And yet, we often don’t stop what we are doing… for sin and evil often present themselves in ways that are attractive to us. So we seek the darkness… to hide what we do. But the reality, for most of us, is not that we sin boldly. For most of us, the wrong that we do is tiny… in our eyes… baby steps of evil. But even these baby steps of evil take us further and further away from God. And those baby steps of evil come from the discontent that lies within… the dissatisfaction of our souls… that is where the true evil lies… and lies to us about being there.
There is television commercial which talks about the wonders of the drug Lamisil. It shows an ugly little creature that lives underneath toe nails… basically a toe nail fungus. In the commercial, the creature talks about how small it is and how much damage it can do hidden away underneath a toe nail. It would be wonderful if we could have a television commercial about evil. It would be much the same… only the ugly little creature would live in our hearts and our minds… distorting our thoughts and creating dissatisfaction and discontent in our hearts. The cure for the toe nail fungus is a medication that is taken by mouth… a drug that pervades the whole body, through the bloodstream, that kills the fungus growing under the toe nails. The cure for the evil in our hearts and our minds is also something that needs to pervade our whole body. The difference is that we can get this medication by simply looking up. Just as the Hebrews who were bitten by the snakes looked up at fiery serpent on a pole and were healed, we need to look up to Jesus hanging on a cross to be healed.
“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” “Indeed God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world… but in order that the world through him might be saved.” Jesus has paid the price for your sin. Your redemption is a gift from God. All you have to do is look up. See the Love of God on a cross… high and lifted up. See the Love of God revealed for the world… the cosmos. Look up and be healed. The possibility still exists. Look up. Amen.
John 3:14-21; Numbers 21:4-9