The cross in the desert
Commentary
Object:
An older church member might see my title and take issue with it. "There is a green hill far away," he says, recalling the old Cecil Alexander song for children about the cross of Christ. If it's a green hill, then it must not have been in the desert!
In fact, the cross on which Jesus died was not in a desert. Rather, the hill called Golgotha was located just outside the ancient city of Jerusalem. It may have been rocky and craggy, but it was not in the midst of a desert.
This week, however, we flip back the pages of scripture from the gospel writers' accounts of the cross to a much earlier view of it. We may be accustomed to the gospels according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, but this Sunday we train our attention on the gospel according to Numbers. For it was in a desert spot many miles and even more years removed from Calvary that the cross of Christ appeared and was recorded.
Now we should note that the people at that time did not recognize it as Christ's cross. Yet that is always the nature of foreshadowing, isn't it? It is only seen clearly in the rearview mirror. And it is only after the actual cross of Christ on Golgotha that we are able to look back and see his cross in the desert in the days of Moses.
In order to prepare our people for this message, we may want to acquaint them with what Jesus said to his disciples on Easter afternoon. "Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?" Jesus asked the travelers on the Emmaus Road. "Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures" (Luke 24:26-27).
Those scriptures, of course, were not Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, or anything written by Paul. Rather, the scriptures that were "written about himself" were the books of the Old Testament. While Luke does not record for us the full syllabus of what Jesus taught his disciples that day, we can well imagine that this episode from Numbers was part of the lesson plan.
So, this week, we turn back a thousand years before Jesus died on the cross in order to see that cross more clearly than we have before.
Numbers 21:4-9
I had a humanities professor in college who offered us a rather cynical observation about essay exams. "At almost any point in Western history from the Middle Ages on," he said, "if you don't know what else to write, you can always write these two things. You can make the case that, at that time, the middle class was rising and that era was the beginning of the modern novel."
Admittedly, that's a pretty broad-brush statement to make about a thousand years of history. I do think, however, that we can make a similar sort of generalization about the forty-year period when the Israelites were in the wilderness. Open to any moment in that story, and you're likely to find the people worrying, doubting, and complaining. Honestly, I'm not sure how Moses endured it for as long as he did.
In this particular episode, as with so many, the Israelites are complaining about their provisions. We observe, however, that their complaint is manifestly inconsistent, for in one moment they are lamenting that there is "no food," while in the next breath are griping about "this miserable food." Whenever I turned up my nose at something my mother put before me, she would say, "Then you must not really be hungry." There was wisdom in that and perhaps that wisdom is behind-the-scenes in this episode from Israel's history, as well.
Just as the people's doubts and complaints are a recurring theme in this wilderness period, so too is the chastening work of God. So it was that the Lord sent poisonous serpents into the Israelite camp, which created an understandable panic among the people. We may be uncomfortable with this action being attributed to God, but we mustn't misunderstand his intent. After all, if his real purpose was to kill the people, we know that he could have done that instantly. Or he could have withheld any cure. But the fact that this plague was so slow and gradual, and the fact that the Lord so readily prescribed a remedy, combine to show us that he did not want the people to die. He wanted them to trust.
The remedy that God prescribes is fascinating in its symbolism.
First, we note that there is no explainable cause-and-effect relationship between the sickness and the cure. God does not instruct them about sucking and spitting. He does not talk of tourniquets and blood flow. He does not suggest some desert plant with curative effects. No, he tells them simply to look at something and that looking will heal them. Clearly, there is no physical connection there, and so the key must lie elsewhere. Namely, God will heal them if they will respond in faith to the remedy he has prescribed.
Second, we see that the solution is modeled after the sickness. In other words, it is not some large syringe or pill that is set before their eyes; it is not some conventional symbol of a cure. Rather, the Lord strangely requires that a symbol of the sickness become the focus of their faith.
Finally, there is the symbolism that Jesus himself sees in this moment. In his conversation with Nicodemus, he precedes one of the most famous verses in the Bible (John 3:16) with a reference to one of the least familiar books in the Bible (Numbers). He directs his audience's attention back to this odd occurrence from the past in order to illustrate what will happen to him in the future. We will explore that teaching more below.
Ephesians 2:1-10
We are familiar with the "before-and-after" genre. We see it with photos of people who have undertaken effective diets, home remodeling projects, urban renovations, and such. One photo shows the condition of the person or place before the crucial event, and the second photo shows the condition after it.
In the absence of pictures, Paul has to settle for a thousand words. Well, not quite that many but his endeavor in the early part of this passage is to illustrate for the Christians in Ephesus the "before-and-after" of their condition. And, I believe he would say, it is the before-and-after of every believer.
The "before" picture is grim, indeed. "You were dead," Paul says baldly. It's hard for a "before" picture to be much worse than that. There is talk of trespasses of sin, of disobedience and wrath. Furthermore, the "before" life was lived under two prevailing influences and neither one is desirable. At a spiritual level, we were "following the ruler of the power of the air." And, at the physical level, we lived "in the passions of our flesh." It is a lethal, trapped, and unsatisfying combination.
The "after" picture, meanwhile, could not be more different. Now we are "made... alive together with Christ." The talk is of mercy and grace, of "immeasurable riches" and kindness. And, finally, as a great trump card that embarrasses the baseness and emptiness of our previous condition, now the Lord has "seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus."
If these before-and-after pictures were pitching some product on a late-night infomercial, who wouldn't buy it? What wouldn't you pay in order to go from that former condition to that latter one? Well, according to Paul, you need not pay anything, at all. "This is not of your own doing," Paul declares. "It is the gift of God."
A gift of God. So there is no price to be paid by us and the gift comes with unimpeachable credentials. The only calculation to be made, therefore, is whether we prefer the before or the after. As soon as that choice becomes to us as obvious as it ought to be, then we will accept and embrace that gift with all our hearts.
Finally, Paul's point that this salvation "is not of your own doing" and "not the result of works" reminds us of the episode from the desert in our Old Testament lection. The desperate people of Israel, doomed to die from the serpents' venom, were offered a means of salvation. But see how that salvation required nothing of them but faith. They did not pay for it, and they were not required to perform any task to achieve their healing. It was, truly, a gift of God. There was no room for human boasting: only gratitude. Just the same as salvation is for you and me.
John 3:14-21
Have the familiar and the unfamiliar ever lived so near to one another? I'm imagining a man who has eaten at the same restaurant for lunch every workday for years, and yet he says he has never heard of the business that is right next door. How can he visit the one so regularly and never notice the other?
So it is in the church. Everyone knows John 3:16, but who knows John 3:15? And how many of our people would even recognize the allusion to the book of Numbers contained there? It is like our childhood home sitting on the border of a foreign country that we've never visited.
The larger context for this teaching, of course, is the pivotal conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus. Nicodemus is the one who initiates the encounter, but he quickly fades into the background. Indeed, while the narrator marks Nicodemus' entrance, we never see his exit. If we were trying to portray the scene on stage, we'd be hard pressed to know what to do with the Nicodemus character. He is quickly bewildered by Jesus' words, and then he stops talking altogether. Dialogue becomes monologue, including this important and partly familiar teaching from Jesus.
Within the scope of our gospel lection, Jesus begins by identifying himself with that serpent on the pole from our Old Testament passage. To the average person in the pew, the reference is likely a meaningless one, for Numbers is uncharted territory for most folks. Once the story is told, the reference still seems obscure, for so many American churchgoers are unaccustomed to thinking about Jesus -- specifically his cross -- in this way. Yet, as our larger theme for this week, we will try to help folks find the gospel in the obscure book of Numbers.
Then Jesus speaks those cherished words that so many of us first learned as children. Sometimes called "the gospel in a nutshell," John 3:16 identifies all the key issues. The statement is so comprehensive, it deserves a sermon series unto itself. First, the motivation of God the Father is identified: love. Then we see that the surprising object of his love is the world. We know from other parts of John's gospel how hostile the world is to God (cf., John 15:18-19), yet that does not change his love for the world. Next we learn what God's love for the world motivated him to do. Even if giving his Son amounted to nothing more than the Christmas event in Bethlehem, the incarnation alone is an incalculable sacrifice. But we recognize that the real truth of "gave his Son" is found in the cross. His good and loving will, you see, is that we should "not perish" (see 2 Peter 3:9) but rather have "eternal life." It is the curse of Eden being reversed.
Verse 17 is a lovely slice of gospel, as well. God would have been justified in condemning the world and the Son could have been the perfect agent of such judgment. Instead, however, God's perfect will is always salvation rather than condemnation. So he sent his Son as the perfect agent of a perfect salvation.
Finally, while we most closely associate the doctrine of justification by faith with the apostle Paul (see above), we see it also presented here in John's gospel. The road by which human beings may access God's salvation is simply belief. Our deeds are evil, to be sure, but will we run from or to the light that exposes them? The Son is the light that "has come into the world," and "those who believe in him are not condemned" but are "saved through him."
Application
Jesus' reference to the serpent-on-a-pole in Numbers invites us to see the cross differently.
In 2004, Mel Gibson presented moviegoers with a vivid and compelling portrait of Jesus' final hours leading up to his death. The Passion of the Christ took us from the Garden of Eden, through merciless torture, and to the gruesomeness of the cross. Many were critical of the movie's graphic portrayal of Jesus' suffering, although students of art history will recognize that Gibson was doing nothing new. For centuries, painters like Matthias Grunewald offered portraits of the cross with excruciating detail. Furthermore, much of Christendom has cherished for centuries the crucifix as the central symbol of their faith. In contrast to the cleanness of an empty cross, the crucifix presents the worshiper with an inescapable reminder of what happened on that cross.
Yet Jesus' own portrait of the cross in John 3 is of quite a different sort. He compares himself to "the serpent in the wilderness." And with that historical allusion, he reframes the entire crucifixion for us.
We customarily think of the cross as punishment and persecution. Undeserved punishment, to be sure, but since that was the intent of those who conspired against Jesus, those are the terms in which we think. Whether it is for us devotional or repugnant, we are mindful of the torture and the shame associated with the cross.
Yet the bronze serpent of Moses' making was not being punished. How do you torture or persecute a piece of metal? And did that fashioned piece of bronze feel shame? For Jesus to draw a parallel with it, therefore, is to see the cross still more clearly.
The serpent in the wilderness was not the object of torture or, in the cherished language of George Bennard's beloved hymn, "the emblem of suffering and shame."1 Rather, it was erected as a means of healing for the fatally snake-bitten people. It was God's gracious prescription for a doomed people.
And so, too, the cross.
As a result, Jesus anticipates himself being "lifted up." In the perverse purpose of the executioners, the criminal was "lifted up" on a cross for public humiliation. But being "lifted up" on the cross is completely recast by Jesus, for in the wilderness, the serpent had been "lifted up" as a necessity for the benefit of the people. If it had not been lifted high, the dying people in around the Israelite camp could not have seen it –- could not "look at it and live." And so it had to be "lifted up." And so did Jesus. For it is when he is lifted up that he draws all people to himself (John 12:32).
An Alternative Application
Numbers 21:4-9. "God's Menu." We remember the manna fondly in story and song. And clearly the Jews of later generations embraced the story of the manna as a conspicuous miracle in the provident care of their God. So it was that the manna was understood and referred to as "bread from heaven" (John 6:32).
See how it is spoken of in our Old Testament passage. To the original recipients, that same manna was understood and referred to as "this miserable food."
How is that possible? Can they all be speaking of the same thing? How can the very same substance be deemed both "bread from heaven" and "miserable food"? It seems like nonsense to us.
We have all heard the expression: "One man's trash is another man's treasure." We have probably seen the principle played out in our own experience. Indeed, we have perhaps been on both sides of the equation.
Is it possible that God's treasure could be man's trash? That is, after all, the verdict of those Israelites in the wilderness. They had tasted the miraculous providence of God, and like children with spinach, they turned up their noses and griped about their diet.
Of course, the prospect of God's treasure being man's trash brings to mind some other passages of scripture. We think, for example, of John's testimony that Jesus "came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him." We think, too, of Paul's observation that "the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing... We proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles" (1 Corinthians 1:18, 23). And, too, there is Jesus' simple, poignant conclusion from the cross: "They know not what they do" (Luke 23:34 KJV).
The whole pattern challenges us to reconsider some of what we may complain about. Is it possible that we are griping about a provision from God? Might we be trying to reject a gift that comes from his wise and generous care?
I remember my mother's response when I would turn up my nose at something on my dinner plate. "I wouldn't make anything that wasn't good and good for you," she would reassure me. Can we say less of God?
Georg Neumark, who endured considerable suffering in his life, sang and shared this truth. "Only be still," he encourages us, "and wait God's leisure in cheerful hope, with heart content to take whate'er thy Maker's pleasure and all-discerning love hath sent; we know our inmost wants are known, for we are called to be God's own."2 So we trust that God wouldn't make anything that wasn't good and good for us. We anticipate, even in the most miserable experiences, that we shall look back on them as "bread from heaven."
__________
1. George Bennard, "The Old Rugged Cross" (United Methodist Hymnal, #504).
2. Georg Neumark, "If Thou but Suffer God to Guide Thee," translated by Catherine Winkworth (United Methodist Hymnal, #142).
In fact, the cross on which Jesus died was not in a desert. Rather, the hill called Golgotha was located just outside the ancient city of Jerusalem. It may have been rocky and craggy, but it was not in the midst of a desert.
This week, however, we flip back the pages of scripture from the gospel writers' accounts of the cross to a much earlier view of it. We may be accustomed to the gospels according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, but this Sunday we train our attention on the gospel according to Numbers. For it was in a desert spot many miles and even more years removed from Calvary that the cross of Christ appeared and was recorded.
Now we should note that the people at that time did not recognize it as Christ's cross. Yet that is always the nature of foreshadowing, isn't it? It is only seen clearly in the rearview mirror. And it is only after the actual cross of Christ on Golgotha that we are able to look back and see his cross in the desert in the days of Moses.
In order to prepare our people for this message, we may want to acquaint them with what Jesus said to his disciples on Easter afternoon. "Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?" Jesus asked the travelers on the Emmaus Road. "Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures" (Luke 24:26-27).
Those scriptures, of course, were not Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, or anything written by Paul. Rather, the scriptures that were "written about himself" were the books of the Old Testament. While Luke does not record for us the full syllabus of what Jesus taught his disciples that day, we can well imagine that this episode from Numbers was part of the lesson plan.
So, this week, we turn back a thousand years before Jesus died on the cross in order to see that cross more clearly than we have before.
Numbers 21:4-9
I had a humanities professor in college who offered us a rather cynical observation about essay exams. "At almost any point in Western history from the Middle Ages on," he said, "if you don't know what else to write, you can always write these two things. You can make the case that, at that time, the middle class was rising and that era was the beginning of the modern novel."
Admittedly, that's a pretty broad-brush statement to make about a thousand years of history. I do think, however, that we can make a similar sort of generalization about the forty-year period when the Israelites were in the wilderness. Open to any moment in that story, and you're likely to find the people worrying, doubting, and complaining. Honestly, I'm not sure how Moses endured it for as long as he did.
In this particular episode, as with so many, the Israelites are complaining about their provisions. We observe, however, that their complaint is manifestly inconsistent, for in one moment they are lamenting that there is "no food," while in the next breath are griping about "this miserable food." Whenever I turned up my nose at something my mother put before me, she would say, "Then you must not really be hungry." There was wisdom in that and perhaps that wisdom is behind-the-scenes in this episode from Israel's history, as well.
Just as the people's doubts and complaints are a recurring theme in this wilderness period, so too is the chastening work of God. So it was that the Lord sent poisonous serpents into the Israelite camp, which created an understandable panic among the people. We may be uncomfortable with this action being attributed to God, but we mustn't misunderstand his intent. After all, if his real purpose was to kill the people, we know that he could have done that instantly. Or he could have withheld any cure. But the fact that this plague was so slow and gradual, and the fact that the Lord so readily prescribed a remedy, combine to show us that he did not want the people to die. He wanted them to trust.
The remedy that God prescribes is fascinating in its symbolism.
First, we note that there is no explainable cause-and-effect relationship between the sickness and the cure. God does not instruct them about sucking and spitting. He does not talk of tourniquets and blood flow. He does not suggest some desert plant with curative effects. No, he tells them simply to look at something and that looking will heal them. Clearly, there is no physical connection there, and so the key must lie elsewhere. Namely, God will heal them if they will respond in faith to the remedy he has prescribed.
Second, we see that the solution is modeled after the sickness. In other words, it is not some large syringe or pill that is set before their eyes; it is not some conventional symbol of a cure. Rather, the Lord strangely requires that a symbol of the sickness become the focus of their faith.
Finally, there is the symbolism that Jesus himself sees in this moment. In his conversation with Nicodemus, he precedes one of the most famous verses in the Bible (John 3:16) with a reference to one of the least familiar books in the Bible (Numbers). He directs his audience's attention back to this odd occurrence from the past in order to illustrate what will happen to him in the future. We will explore that teaching more below.
Ephesians 2:1-10
We are familiar with the "before-and-after" genre. We see it with photos of people who have undertaken effective diets, home remodeling projects, urban renovations, and such. One photo shows the condition of the person or place before the crucial event, and the second photo shows the condition after it.
In the absence of pictures, Paul has to settle for a thousand words. Well, not quite that many but his endeavor in the early part of this passage is to illustrate for the Christians in Ephesus the "before-and-after" of their condition. And, I believe he would say, it is the before-and-after of every believer.
The "before" picture is grim, indeed. "You were dead," Paul says baldly. It's hard for a "before" picture to be much worse than that. There is talk of trespasses of sin, of disobedience and wrath. Furthermore, the "before" life was lived under two prevailing influences and neither one is desirable. At a spiritual level, we were "following the ruler of the power of the air." And, at the physical level, we lived "in the passions of our flesh." It is a lethal, trapped, and unsatisfying combination.
The "after" picture, meanwhile, could not be more different. Now we are "made... alive together with Christ." The talk is of mercy and grace, of "immeasurable riches" and kindness. And, finally, as a great trump card that embarrasses the baseness and emptiness of our previous condition, now the Lord has "seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus."
If these before-and-after pictures were pitching some product on a late-night infomercial, who wouldn't buy it? What wouldn't you pay in order to go from that former condition to that latter one? Well, according to Paul, you need not pay anything, at all. "This is not of your own doing," Paul declares. "It is the gift of God."
A gift of God. So there is no price to be paid by us and the gift comes with unimpeachable credentials. The only calculation to be made, therefore, is whether we prefer the before or the after. As soon as that choice becomes to us as obvious as it ought to be, then we will accept and embrace that gift with all our hearts.
Finally, Paul's point that this salvation "is not of your own doing" and "not the result of works" reminds us of the episode from the desert in our Old Testament lection. The desperate people of Israel, doomed to die from the serpents' venom, were offered a means of salvation. But see how that salvation required nothing of them but faith. They did not pay for it, and they were not required to perform any task to achieve their healing. It was, truly, a gift of God. There was no room for human boasting: only gratitude. Just the same as salvation is for you and me.
John 3:14-21
Have the familiar and the unfamiliar ever lived so near to one another? I'm imagining a man who has eaten at the same restaurant for lunch every workday for years, and yet he says he has never heard of the business that is right next door. How can he visit the one so regularly and never notice the other?
So it is in the church. Everyone knows John 3:16, but who knows John 3:15? And how many of our people would even recognize the allusion to the book of Numbers contained there? It is like our childhood home sitting on the border of a foreign country that we've never visited.
The larger context for this teaching, of course, is the pivotal conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus. Nicodemus is the one who initiates the encounter, but he quickly fades into the background. Indeed, while the narrator marks Nicodemus' entrance, we never see his exit. If we were trying to portray the scene on stage, we'd be hard pressed to know what to do with the Nicodemus character. He is quickly bewildered by Jesus' words, and then he stops talking altogether. Dialogue becomes monologue, including this important and partly familiar teaching from Jesus.
Within the scope of our gospel lection, Jesus begins by identifying himself with that serpent on the pole from our Old Testament passage. To the average person in the pew, the reference is likely a meaningless one, for Numbers is uncharted territory for most folks. Once the story is told, the reference still seems obscure, for so many American churchgoers are unaccustomed to thinking about Jesus -- specifically his cross -- in this way. Yet, as our larger theme for this week, we will try to help folks find the gospel in the obscure book of Numbers.
Then Jesus speaks those cherished words that so many of us first learned as children. Sometimes called "the gospel in a nutshell," John 3:16 identifies all the key issues. The statement is so comprehensive, it deserves a sermon series unto itself. First, the motivation of God the Father is identified: love. Then we see that the surprising object of his love is the world. We know from other parts of John's gospel how hostile the world is to God (cf., John 15:18-19), yet that does not change his love for the world. Next we learn what God's love for the world motivated him to do. Even if giving his Son amounted to nothing more than the Christmas event in Bethlehem, the incarnation alone is an incalculable sacrifice. But we recognize that the real truth of "gave his Son" is found in the cross. His good and loving will, you see, is that we should "not perish" (see 2 Peter 3:9) but rather have "eternal life." It is the curse of Eden being reversed.
Verse 17 is a lovely slice of gospel, as well. God would have been justified in condemning the world and the Son could have been the perfect agent of such judgment. Instead, however, God's perfect will is always salvation rather than condemnation. So he sent his Son as the perfect agent of a perfect salvation.
Finally, while we most closely associate the doctrine of justification by faith with the apostle Paul (see above), we see it also presented here in John's gospel. The road by which human beings may access God's salvation is simply belief. Our deeds are evil, to be sure, but will we run from or to the light that exposes them? The Son is the light that "has come into the world," and "those who believe in him are not condemned" but are "saved through him."
Application
Jesus' reference to the serpent-on-a-pole in Numbers invites us to see the cross differently.
In 2004, Mel Gibson presented moviegoers with a vivid and compelling portrait of Jesus' final hours leading up to his death. The Passion of the Christ took us from the Garden of Eden, through merciless torture, and to the gruesomeness of the cross. Many were critical of the movie's graphic portrayal of Jesus' suffering, although students of art history will recognize that Gibson was doing nothing new. For centuries, painters like Matthias Grunewald offered portraits of the cross with excruciating detail. Furthermore, much of Christendom has cherished for centuries the crucifix as the central symbol of their faith. In contrast to the cleanness of an empty cross, the crucifix presents the worshiper with an inescapable reminder of what happened on that cross.
Yet Jesus' own portrait of the cross in John 3 is of quite a different sort. He compares himself to "the serpent in the wilderness." And with that historical allusion, he reframes the entire crucifixion for us.
We customarily think of the cross as punishment and persecution. Undeserved punishment, to be sure, but since that was the intent of those who conspired against Jesus, those are the terms in which we think. Whether it is for us devotional or repugnant, we are mindful of the torture and the shame associated with the cross.
Yet the bronze serpent of Moses' making was not being punished. How do you torture or persecute a piece of metal? And did that fashioned piece of bronze feel shame? For Jesus to draw a parallel with it, therefore, is to see the cross still more clearly.
The serpent in the wilderness was not the object of torture or, in the cherished language of George Bennard's beloved hymn, "the emblem of suffering and shame."1 Rather, it was erected as a means of healing for the fatally snake-bitten people. It was God's gracious prescription for a doomed people.
And so, too, the cross.
As a result, Jesus anticipates himself being "lifted up." In the perverse purpose of the executioners, the criminal was "lifted up" on a cross for public humiliation. But being "lifted up" on the cross is completely recast by Jesus, for in the wilderness, the serpent had been "lifted up" as a necessity for the benefit of the people. If it had not been lifted high, the dying people in around the Israelite camp could not have seen it –- could not "look at it and live." And so it had to be "lifted up." And so did Jesus. For it is when he is lifted up that he draws all people to himself (John 12:32).
An Alternative Application
Numbers 21:4-9. "God's Menu." We remember the manna fondly in story and song. And clearly the Jews of later generations embraced the story of the manna as a conspicuous miracle in the provident care of their God. So it was that the manna was understood and referred to as "bread from heaven" (John 6:32).
See how it is spoken of in our Old Testament passage. To the original recipients, that same manna was understood and referred to as "this miserable food."
How is that possible? Can they all be speaking of the same thing? How can the very same substance be deemed both "bread from heaven" and "miserable food"? It seems like nonsense to us.
We have all heard the expression: "One man's trash is another man's treasure." We have probably seen the principle played out in our own experience. Indeed, we have perhaps been on both sides of the equation.
Is it possible that God's treasure could be man's trash? That is, after all, the verdict of those Israelites in the wilderness. They had tasted the miraculous providence of God, and like children with spinach, they turned up their noses and griped about their diet.
Of course, the prospect of God's treasure being man's trash brings to mind some other passages of scripture. We think, for example, of John's testimony that Jesus "came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him." We think, too, of Paul's observation that "the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing... We proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles" (1 Corinthians 1:18, 23). And, too, there is Jesus' simple, poignant conclusion from the cross: "They know not what they do" (Luke 23:34 KJV).
The whole pattern challenges us to reconsider some of what we may complain about. Is it possible that we are griping about a provision from God? Might we be trying to reject a gift that comes from his wise and generous care?
I remember my mother's response when I would turn up my nose at something on my dinner plate. "I wouldn't make anything that wasn't good and good for you," she would reassure me. Can we say less of God?
Georg Neumark, who endured considerable suffering in his life, sang and shared this truth. "Only be still," he encourages us, "and wait God's leisure in cheerful hope, with heart content to take whate'er thy Maker's pleasure and all-discerning love hath sent; we know our inmost wants are known, for we are called to be God's own."2 So we trust that God wouldn't make anything that wasn't good and good for us. We anticipate, even in the most miserable experiences, that we shall look back on them as "bread from heaven."
__________
1. George Bennard, "The Old Rugged Cross" (United Methodist Hymnal, #504).
2. Georg Neumark, "If Thou but Suffer God to Guide Thee," translated by Catherine Winkworth (United Methodist Hymnal, #142).
