Seeking aid
Commentary
Like the stereotypical North American man, Bob is hesitant to stop and ask for directions. He may be entirely lost, without a clue where he is and how he might get from there to his destination. Still, he is too stubborn to admit he needs help. He keeps hoping that he can remain independent and find his way by himself.
Bob is like a lot of us. We are reluctant to seek aid, to ask for help. Some of us find it hard to admit that we are lost, to recognize that we cannot do it ourselves, and to rely on someone else. The number of people who refuse to see a doctor or will not seek counseling for an emotional problem witness to this widespread propensity of ours to "make it on our own." Seeking aid is not always easy.
In our explorations of some of the themes which arise in our Lenten journeys, seeking aid is a vital one. It follows rather naturally from the discussion of cutting out of our lives the centers of unfaithfulness and unhealthiness. An effort to accomplish that difficult task always sends us searching for aid. Our lessons will help us think through the source of help for us and nurture a willingness to seek aid.
Numbers 21:4-9
This strange story is included among the lesson for the obvious reason that it provides the backdrop for the Gospel lesson and Jesus' words about lifting up the serpent (John 3:14). The story is strange because God first brings on this crisis of poisonous snakes as a punishment for the people's complaints and then has to offer the means by which the poison can be neutralized. The structure of the story betrays an ancient Hebraic assumption that God must be the source of all evil as well as of all good. The question of evil and its source is solved by an appeal to the sovereignty of God, who transcends the difference between good and evil.
The incident is a part of the whole story represented in Numbers, that is, the account of the people's forty years of wandering in the wilderness. Chapter 20 is located in the middle section of the whole narrative while Israel is moving toward Moab. Our passage is preceded by the story of Israel's victory over Canaanites at Mount Hor. The structure of the reading is simple. There is a problem brought on by the people's complaints (vv. 4-7a), and God offers the solution (vv. 7b-8).
The problem is rooted in impatience. The people have had enough of this seemingly pointless wandering and the hardships of the nomadic life. What's the point of the exodus, if they all are going to die now in the wilderness instead of in Egypt? Their complaints are targeted at Moses but also to God. There is no water and the food is lousy. Poor Moses takes all the flack. God, however, responds with punishment by sending a hoard of poisonous snakes. The Hebrew actually means "fiery snakes," so-called presumably because their bites caused such a terrible burning. Such creatures are common in this region of the world. After enough deaths, the people realize that God is justly punishing them, and they plead for Moses to intervene on their behalf. Moses seems always having to take the people's pleas to God (for another example, see Numbers 14). The people have been brought to their knees, and their words sound very much like a confession of sin. But what can be done for them?
The answer comes in verses 7b-9. In response to Moses' petition, God gives some bizarre directions. The solution sounds like a bit of magic, investing healing power in an object resembling the one that is causing all the problems. It was an ancient idea that it helped to look on an image of some dangerous power and make some sort of offering to the image. The two Hebrew words for the object Moses makes, "poisonous serpent," are both derived from the same root. The original expression might have referred to a fiery or a flying serpent or "a seraph serpent" (see Isaiah 6:2 and 6 and 2 Kings 18:4). Whatever the ancient meaning of that serpent, the plan worked. Moses put it on a pole, held it up so people could see it, and when they looked at it they were healed of their snake bites.
Embedded in this old, old story are a number of features that are at odds with the biblical faith that eventually emerged. We neither attribute disasters to God's wrath nor make images of those things that cause us trouble. However, this is a perfect example of desperate people finally recognizing their need and seeking aid. Like many of us, the Israelites had to be brought to the point of despair before they realized their sin and appealed to God for help. We need to credit them with that much and acknowledge that their willingness to seek aid is a fundamental of our faith.
Ephesians 2:1-10
The author of Ephesians expresses the source of our aid in Christ. This epistle is interested, among other things, in articulating the theological basis of the inclusion of both Gentiles and Jews in the church. The intended readers appear to be for the most part Gentiles. The question of authorship need not detain us. We will not, however, refer to Paul as the author.
In chapter two the author addresses one of the main themes of this writing in the first ten verses. In verse 11 the author picks up another important theme which follows as an implication of verses 1-10, namely, the unity of the whole church in Christ. The reading for this Sunday has three parts which are logically connected. The first three verses articulate the condition of humans before the revelation of God in Christ. The second section (vv. 4-7) names the way God has radically reversed the human condition. Finally, verses 8-10 trace out the consequences of God's transformation of our lives.
In the most radical of terms, the first section epitomizes the condition of the Gentiles before Christ: "You were dead." The dead-alive contrast forms the primary image of the transformation discussed in the first eight verses. Their lives and their way of life (the literal meaning of the word translated "lived") were held in bondage to the force of evil. That demonic power is characterized in three different ways. It is "the course of the world," meaning the general nature of human life. Secondly, this power is "the ruler of the air." Like many of the New Testament writers, this author conceives of a realm inhabited by cosmic powers, some of which are opposed to God and some of which are God's angelic servants. The expression means simply Satan (see 4:27 and 6:11). But why "of the air"? It may simply designate the cosmic heavenly realm or that portion of it which is closest to humans. We might say, it is the evil force that is in the "air we breathe." Finally, that same being (Satan) is called the "spirit" responsible for the alienation from God. The use of spirit here is undoubtedly to provide a contrast with the divine Spirit (1:13; 2:18 and 22).
Verse 3 simply sketches the way we live as a result of these evil influences -- following our own desires and appetites and demonstrating that we are children of God's wrath. That means we are without any power to resist the judgment of God. Notice in verse 3, too, how the author includes him or herself in this predicament ("All of us ...").
The "but" of verse 4 turns the discussion the other direction. We were "dead," but God "made us alive together in Christ" and "raised us up." Life without the revelation of God's love is really nothing but death, and that love gives us life. God's action in doing this proceeds from divine mercy, love, and grace -- all three terms used to describe God's motivation for bringing us out of our predicament. This author makes it sound as if our resurrection is our being brought to faith in God through Christ, a kind of "realized eschatology." The blessed resurrection of the future is already here. But that resurrection also includes our exaltation. Because of Christ, we are seated with him "in heavenly places," in order that we might experience the full measure of God's grace. Obviously, the author speaks metaphorically and means that our destinies are already with God.
The final section seems to bring the human plight and its transformation together in order to state its consequences. Verses 8-9 sound like a summary of the Pauline theme (see Romans 3:21-31). Our rescue from the bondage described in the opening verses is not based in any way on our being "good little boys and girls," but entirely on God's unmerited love. So we have nothing to boast about. However, one result of God's salvation is that we might live good moral lives ("for good works"). Note how "good works" follow grace and never precede them. "Works" here must be taken simply to mean behavior and does not carry all the negative connotations it often has in Paul's letters. Finally, this life to which God has brought us is what the divine will intended all along. In this sense, our redemption makes us what God wanted us to be from the very first.
Have you ever heard someone say, or have you ever said, "Help me! I'm dying here!"? It is an expression of absolute desperation -- I'm failing and cannot do otherwise. That metaphorical sense of dying is taken more seriously by the author of Ephesians. Life separated from God is death, and only God can rescue us and give us life. There is a kind of realism in this author's depiction of the human situation as well as the transformation in Christ. It captures the essence of the real human feelings and attitudes. This passage helps us understand our need to relinquish any claim to power, any assumption of command of our life, and any means of helping ourselves. We have no option but to seek aid.
John 3:14-21
This Johannine passage says something of the same thing as the Ephesians reading and brings along with it the use of the Numbers passage. However, this Gospel lesson is rather difficult. It drops us down into the tail end of the speech that follows Jesus' encounter with Nicodemus (3:1-15 or 16). Jesus' words to Nicodemus, however, after verse 10, seem to concern another topic. At verse 11 the speaker becomes plural ("we speak"), so that it is hard to tell who is speaking here -- Jesus or the Christian community (or both). Nonetheless, the immediate context for these words is Jesus' discussion with Nicodemus.
The lesson includes a number of related topics. Typical of Jesus' speeches in the fourth Gospel, there doesn't seem to be a logical progression in the words. Nonetheless, we can isolate the major parts of the reading. The first part consists of verses 14-16 and has to do with the "heavenly things" mentioned in verse 12. The consequences of God's act in Christ for judgment are explored in verses 17-21 which constitute the second part of the reading.
Jesus has just asserted that he comes from heaven (v. 13), when he mentions Moses and the serpent in Numbers 21. A number of things need to be said about verses 14 and 15. First, the point is that Jesus' death and resurrection is in some way comparable to Moses' saving the people from snake bite by hoisting up a bronze serpent. The elevation of the serpent and the cure it offered is like the cure God offers in Christ's crucifixion. As people were healed of their poisonous bites when they looked on the serpent, so are we healed of the poison of our sin and alienation from God when we look at the cross.
Another thing to note about these verses is the double meaning of the word translated "lifted up." The Greek word was used both for hoisting one up on a cross for execution and for enthroning a king -- the ascension to the monarchy. With that double meaning, the fourth evangelist captures the meaning of the cross. It is an execution and at the same time the enthronement of the rightful king of all creation. This understanding of the cross is essential to the fourth Gospel's view of the death of Jesus. To package it in a single term that has two meanings is also typical of the Johannine style. (See the use of anwqen in 3:3-7 to mean both "again" and "from above.")
Finally, these two verses summarize the reason for the advent of Christ and for his crucifixion-resurrection. Believing in him brings "eternal life" (see 20:31). "Eternal life" is a favorite Johannine expression for salvation, redemption, and right relationship with God. It means a quality of life that is God's desire for humans; it is life as life should be. In that way, it is synonymous with what the author of Ephesians says in 2:8-10. Eternal life does not refer simply to life beyond the grave, although the quality of life it designates is not subject to death (see 11:25-26).
Verse 16 captures the whole of the gospel story and the Christian message. "Father" and "Son" is the way this Gospel most often characterizes the intimate relationship between God and Christ. It is a metaphor: Christ is to God as a child is to her or his parent. In this case, the word "Son" is modified with a controversial adjective (translated "only") which is best understood simply as "unique." The specification probably intended by "only" distinguishes between Christ's sonship and that of others who are "children of God." The divine motivation for sending Christ is simply love. However, the Greek word here is the verbal form of agape, which often designates an unconditional and unreserved love.
The object of that love is the "world," which so often in the fourth Gospel is used in a negative sense as a symbol of the realm of evil (for example, 15:18-19). Here, however, two meanings of "the world" are both viable: the creation viewed in a neutral sense or the realm of evil. With the latter meaning, the statement claims God loves even those in the grips of evil. Jesus later prays that the disciples be sent into the world as he was sent (17:18), and still later the risen Christ sends the disciples on a mission into the world, again as God sent him (20:21). God seeks to redeem a creation that is alienated from its Creator and commissions the church to participate in that divine redemption in the same way God sent Christ into the world to redeem it. Here "eternal life" is contrasted with "perish." Again, like Ephesians, the contrast between living with or without God is a matter of life and death.
A discussion of judgment ensues after these powerful statements in verses 14-16. The heart of verses 17-21 is that God does not send the divine Son into the world for the purposes of "condemning" (or more literally "judging"). Indeed, God desires to rescue the world, not judge it. Verse 18 suggests that people actually judge themselves by how they respond to Christ. This idea represents part of what has been called the "realized eschatology" of the fourth Gospel. The judgment usually thought of at the end time of history (or after death) occurs in the present in how we respond to Christ. The presence of judgment in the here and now parallels the evangelist's conviction that eternal life is already a present possibility for believers (e.g., 5:24). God does not intend judgment. However, the division between those who believe in Christ and those who do not is a consequence of the offer of eternal life.
Verses 19-21 state briefly the nature of the judgment that occurs because of Christ. The revelation is "light," but some "love darkness" (see 1:3b-5 and 9). John's portrayal of Jesus' teachings includes a realism. Some are comfortable in their separation from God and will reject the offer of a relationship with God. Note, however, that our deeds are what exhibit our attachment to a life of separation from God ("darkness," vv. 19b-20) as well as our communion with God (v. 21). We are more comfortable if that evil side of us is hidden away and not illumined for others to see. The converse of this hiding is living the truth (v. 21). The words "truth" and "true" in the fourth Gospel usually refer to the revelation of God in Christ. "Do what is true" means living by what we know of God through Christ. If we do that, others will recognize that our "deeds have been done in God" (see 13:34-35). Behavior or lifestyle displays our commitment.
When this Gospel reading is laid alongside the theme of seeking aid, we see how clearly it invites us to accept the help God offers in Christ. God seeks us out of love, and therefore we can seek divine help without fear or hesitancy. Most important is that this openness to help assumes God's loving desire as opposed to judgment. Like Martin Luther once did and many still do, we are inclined to see only the wrathful face of God. What all our lessons stress is the commitment of the divine will to rescue us. If there is judgment, we bring it on ourselves by our stubborn refusal of God's caring aid. Seeking God's aid is recognizing who we are, what we need, and where we can find it. This Lent we learn to seek God's aid without reluctance and most certainly without fear.
FIRST LESSON FOCUS
By Elizabeth Achtemeier
Numbers 21:4-9
In our gospel lesson for today, Jesus says to Nicodemus, "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" (John 3:14-15). What on earth is Jesus referring to? What is this serpent that he talks about, that Moses lifted up in the wilderness? Obviously, our Lord was referring to the story that we heard for our Old Testament text this morning. Jesus knows his Bible, the Old Testament, through and through, and often he refers to some event in that testament, or the gospel writers will quote some verse from that book. Both portions of our scripture -- Old Testament and New -- form one long history of God's dealings with his people Israel, and so it is not surprising that Jesus is referring to this story in Numbers 21.
In that story, the Israelites have been delivered from their slavery in Egypt. They have entered into covenant with the God who has redeemed them. They have had God's commandments given to them as the guides for their new life as a freed people. Now they are slogging wearily through the heat, the dust, and the dangers of the Arabian desert, on their way toward the land that God has promised them. God goes before them day and night, his presence with them symbolized by the ark of the covenant. And every day God graciously feeds them with his manna from heaven.
Despite all of that care by God, the Israelites are not very happy campers. Occasionally they run out of water or food and complain to their leader Moses. But God mercifully always supplies such necessities. Yet that does not satisfy the murmuring and grumbling travelers. They want something better. "We loathe this worthless food!" they tell Moses (v. 5). Once they even complained, "We remember the fish we ate in Egypt for nothing, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic; but now our strength is dried up, and there is nothing at all but this manna to look at" (Numbers 11:5-6). Talk about a lack of gratitude! God graciously feeds them every day with his bread from heaven, and they want something better!
Surely the Israelites are very much like us in our ingratitude for God's gifts. Every day, the Lord guides us and loves us; everyday he forgives our faults; every day he surrounds us with the beauty of his world, and sends on us his sun and rain; every morning his mercies are new, and every evening his care guards our sleep. And what do we say? "There is nothing but this manna to look at! We loathe this worthless food!"
It is no wonder that God gets disgusted with his people sometimes and has to teach them -- and us -- in a radical fashion. And so in our text, God sends fiery serpents among the Israelites to bite them and cause their death. And it is sometimes when we experience some tragedy that we realize our fault. So the Israelites repent of their grumbling ingratitude to Moses, and Moses prays for them to the Lord, fulfilling that prophetic function of interceding in prayer for his people.
As a result, God in his mercy forgives his people and instructs Moses in the way of healing. "Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a pole; and every one who is bitten, when he sees it, he shall live" (v. 8). Yes, God judges our sinful ways and sometimes we pay the penalty for them. But God's mercy and love for us are first and foremost, and God himself also furnishes the means of our forgiveness and healing. Mind you, the Israelites have to respond to God's means; they have to look at that bronze serpent on the pole. But the way to healing and life comes from God, and not from the sinful people.
It's a very strange story, isn't it? Lying behind it is a long tradition associated with serpents. We still preserve some of that history in the symbol of medicine in our time, which has the picture of a serpent wrapped around a pole. And by fiery serpents, our story probably wants us to understand that these are not ordinary snakes, but mysterious creatures unlike other serpents and sent by God (cf. Isaiah 14:29; 30:6). In addition, some would say that the story is a superstitious account of magic, because in ancient times people thought that they could annul the power of a dangerous creature by making an image of it and worshiping it. Apparently, when the later Israelites worshiped in Solomon's temple, they had the figure of a bronze serpent there, and in the reform that was carried out by King Hezekiah in the eighth century B.C., Hezekiah had the figure of the serpent removed because the people were burning incense to it (2 Kings 18:4). But that is a distortion of this text. There is no worship of the serpent on the pole here in Numbers 21, and both the fiery serpents and the bronze serpent on the pole that Moses erects are instruments of God -- of the God who cannot be manipulated by any sort of magic. This text is an account primarily of God's actions toward his chosen people -- the account of both his judgment and his forgiving mercy. From that standpoint, it is a text that we need to ponder, because we in the church are also God's chosen folk, making our way toward the promised land of the Kingdom of God, and slogging, sometimes wearily, through the dryness and dangers of our life. Our text tells us as we journey through the ups and downs of everyday that God deals with us in both judgment and mercy, but that always, always, there is healing and life for us from the hand of our Lord. Yes, the healing comes when we repent and accept directions from our God. And life comes only through the means that the Lord of life has given us.
But the Lord our God has given us those means of healing and life, hasn't he? He has given them through Jesus Christ who recalls this ancient story from Numbers for us. Jesus tells Nicodemus and us in our New Testament lesson that if he is lifted up on the cross, as Moses lifted up that bronze serpent for the Israelites, whoever trusts in him and his saving sacrifice will have eternal life. No more eternal death in the wilderness of our days, you see. No more futility and fear before any hardship that confronts us. No more longing for the fleshpots of sin's slavery. No more belief that something can separate us from the love of God. No, good Christian friends. Lift high the cross and Jesus Christ upon it! And find healing for your souls and life eternal both now and forever!
Bob is like a lot of us. We are reluctant to seek aid, to ask for help. Some of us find it hard to admit that we are lost, to recognize that we cannot do it ourselves, and to rely on someone else. The number of people who refuse to see a doctor or will not seek counseling for an emotional problem witness to this widespread propensity of ours to "make it on our own." Seeking aid is not always easy.
In our explorations of some of the themes which arise in our Lenten journeys, seeking aid is a vital one. It follows rather naturally from the discussion of cutting out of our lives the centers of unfaithfulness and unhealthiness. An effort to accomplish that difficult task always sends us searching for aid. Our lessons will help us think through the source of help for us and nurture a willingness to seek aid.
Numbers 21:4-9
This strange story is included among the lesson for the obvious reason that it provides the backdrop for the Gospel lesson and Jesus' words about lifting up the serpent (John 3:14). The story is strange because God first brings on this crisis of poisonous snakes as a punishment for the people's complaints and then has to offer the means by which the poison can be neutralized. The structure of the story betrays an ancient Hebraic assumption that God must be the source of all evil as well as of all good. The question of evil and its source is solved by an appeal to the sovereignty of God, who transcends the difference between good and evil.
The incident is a part of the whole story represented in Numbers, that is, the account of the people's forty years of wandering in the wilderness. Chapter 20 is located in the middle section of the whole narrative while Israel is moving toward Moab. Our passage is preceded by the story of Israel's victory over Canaanites at Mount Hor. The structure of the reading is simple. There is a problem brought on by the people's complaints (vv. 4-7a), and God offers the solution (vv. 7b-8).
The problem is rooted in impatience. The people have had enough of this seemingly pointless wandering and the hardships of the nomadic life. What's the point of the exodus, if they all are going to die now in the wilderness instead of in Egypt? Their complaints are targeted at Moses but also to God. There is no water and the food is lousy. Poor Moses takes all the flack. God, however, responds with punishment by sending a hoard of poisonous snakes. The Hebrew actually means "fiery snakes," so-called presumably because their bites caused such a terrible burning. Such creatures are common in this region of the world. After enough deaths, the people realize that God is justly punishing them, and they plead for Moses to intervene on their behalf. Moses seems always having to take the people's pleas to God (for another example, see Numbers 14). The people have been brought to their knees, and their words sound very much like a confession of sin. But what can be done for them?
The answer comes in verses 7b-9. In response to Moses' petition, God gives some bizarre directions. The solution sounds like a bit of magic, investing healing power in an object resembling the one that is causing all the problems. It was an ancient idea that it helped to look on an image of some dangerous power and make some sort of offering to the image. The two Hebrew words for the object Moses makes, "poisonous serpent," are both derived from the same root. The original expression might have referred to a fiery or a flying serpent or "a seraph serpent" (see Isaiah 6:2 and 6 and 2 Kings 18:4). Whatever the ancient meaning of that serpent, the plan worked. Moses put it on a pole, held it up so people could see it, and when they looked at it they were healed of their snake bites.
Embedded in this old, old story are a number of features that are at odds with the biblical faith that eventually emerged. We neither attribute disasters to God's wrath nor make images of those things that cause us trouble. However, this is a perfect example of desperate people finally recognizing their need and seeking aid. Like many of us, the Israelites had to be brought to the point of despair before they realized their sin and appealed to God for help. We need to credit them with that much and acknowledge that their willingness to seek aid is a fundamental of our faith.
Ephesians 2:1-10
The author of Ephesians expresses the source of our aid in Christ. This epistle is interested, among other things, in articulating the theological basis of the inclusion of both Gentiles and Jews in the church. The intended readers appear to be for the most part Gentiles. The question of authorship need not detain us. We will not, however, refer to Paul as the author.
In chapter two the author addresses one of the main themes of this writing in the first ten verses. In verse 11 the author picks up another important theme which follows as an implication of verses 1-10, namely, the unity of the whole church in Christ. The reading for this Sunday has three parts which are logically connected. The first three verses articulate the condition of humans before the revelation of God in Christ. The second section (vv. 4-7) names the way God has radically reversed the human condition. Finally, verses 8-10 trace out the consequences of God's transformation of our lives.
In the most radical of terms, the first section epitomizes the condition of the Gentiles before Christ: "You were dead." The dead-alive contrast forms the primary image of the transformation discussed in the first eight verses. Their lives and their way of life (the literal meaning of the word translated "lived") were held in bondage to the force of evil. That demonic power is characterized in three different ways. It is "the course of the world," meaning the general nature of human life. Secondly, this power is "the ruler of the air." Like many of the New Testament writers, this author conceives of a realm inhabited by cosmic powers, some of which are opposed to God and some of which are God's angelic servants. The expression means simply Satan (see 4:27 and 6:11). But why "of the air"? It may simply designate the cosmic heavenly realm or that portion of it which is closest to humans. We might say, it is the evil force that is in the "air we breathe." Finally, that same being (Satan) is called the "spirit" responsible for the alienation from God. The use of spirit here is undoubtedly to provide a contrast with the divine Spirit (1:13; 2:18 and 22).
Verse 3 simply sketches the way we live as a result of these evil influences -- following our own desires and appetites and demonstrating that we are children of God's wrath. That means we are without any power to resist the judgment of God. Notice in verse 3, too, how the author includes him or herself in this predicament ("All of us ...").
The "but" of verse 4 turns the discussion the other direction. We were "dead," but God "made us alive together in Christ" and "raised us up." Life without the revelation of God's love is really nothing but death, and that love gives us life. God's action in doing this proceeds from divine mercy, love, and grace -- all three terms used to describe God's motivation for bringing us out of our predicament. This author makes it sound as if our resurrection is our being brought to faith in God through Christ, a kind of "realized eschatology." The blessed resurrection of the future is already here. But that resurrection also includes our exaltation. Because of Christ, we are seated with him "in heavenly places," in order that we might experience the full measure of God's grace. Obviously, the author speaks metaphorically and means that our destinies are already with God.
The final section seems to bring the human plight and its transformation together in order to state its consequences. Verses 8-9 sound like a summary of the Pauline theme (see Romans 3:21-31). Our rescue from the bondage described in the opening verses is not based in any way on our being "good little boys and girls," but entirely on God's unmerited love. So we have nothing to boast about. However, one result of God's salvation is that we might live good moral lives ("for good works"). Note how "good works" follow grace and never precede them. "Works" here must be taken simply to mean behavior and does not carry all the negative connotations it often has in Paul's letters. Finally, this life to which God has brought us is what the divine will intended all along. In this sense, our redemption makes us what God wanted us to be from the very first.
Have you ever heard someone say, or have you ever said, "Help me! I'm dying here!"? It is an expression of absolute desperation -- I'm failing and cannot do otherwise. That metaphorical sense of dying is taken more seriously by the author of Ephesians. Life separated from God is death, and only God can rescue us and give us life. There is a kind of realism in this author's depiction of the human situation as well as the transformation in Christ. It captures the essence of the real human feelings and attitudes. This passage helps us understand our need to relinquish any claim to power, any assumption of command of our life, and any means of helping ourselves. We have no option but to seek aid.
John 3:14-21
This Johannine passage says something of the same thing as the Ephesians reading and brings along with it the use of the Numbers passage. However, this Gospel lesson is rather difficult. It drops us down into the tail end of the speech that follows Jesus' encounter with Nicodemus (3:1-15 or 16). Jesus' words to Nicodemus, however, after verse 10, seem to concern another topic. At verse 11 the speaker becomes plural ("we speak"), so that it is hard to tell who is speaking here -- Jesus or the Christian community (or both). Nonetheless, the immediate context for these words is Jesus' discussion with Nicodemus.
The lesson includes a number of related topics. Typical of Jesus' speeches in the fourth Gospel, there doesn't seem to be a logical progression in the words. Nonetheless, we can isolate the major parts of the reading. The first part consists of verses 14-16 and has to do with the "heavenly things" mentioned in verse 12. The consequences of God's act in Christ for judgment are explored in verses 17-21 which constitute the second part of the reading.
Jesus has just asserted that he comes from heaven (v. 13), when he mentions Moses and the serpent in Numbers 21. A number of things need to be said about verses 14 and 15. First, the point is that Jesus' death and resurrection is in some way comparable to Moses' saving the people from snake bite by hoisting up a bronze serpent. The elevation of the serpent and the cure it offered is like the cure God offers in Christ's crucifixion. As people were healed of their poisonous bites when they looked on the serpent, so are we healed of the poison of our sin and alienation from God when we look at the cross.
Another thing to note about these verses is the double meaning of the word translated "lifted up." The Greek word was used both for hoisting one up on a cross for execution and for enthroning a king -- the ascension to the monarchy. With that double meaning, the fourth evangelist captures the meaning of the cross. It is an execution and at the same time the enthronement of the rightful king of all creation. This understanding of the cross is essential to the fourth Gospel's view of the death of Jesus. To package it in a single term that has two meanings is also typical of the Johannine style. (See the use of anwqen in 3:3-7 to mean both "again" and "from above.")
Finally, these two verses summarize the reason for the advent of Christ and for his crucifixion-resurrection. Believing in him brings "eternal life" (see 20:31). "Eternal life" is a favorite Johannine expression for salvation, redemption, and right relationship with God. It means a quality of life that is God's desire for humans; it is life as life should be. In that way, it is synonymous with what the author of Ephesians says in 2:8-10. Eternal life does not refer simply to life beyond the grave, although the quality of life it designates is not subject to death (see 11:25-26).
Verse 16 captures the whole of the gospel story and the Christian message. "Father" and "Son" is the way this Gospel most often characterizes the intimate relationship between God and Christ. It is a metaphor: Christ is to God as a child is to her or his parent. In this case, the word "Son" is modified with a controversial adjective (translated "only") which is best understood simply as "unique." The specification probably intended by "only" distinguishes between Christ's sonship and that of others who are "children of God." The divine motivation for sending Christ is simply love. However, the Greek word here is the verbal form of agape, which often designates an unconditional and unreserved love.
The object of that love is the "world," which so often in the fourth Gospel is used in a negative sense as a symbol of the realm of evil (for example, 15:18-19). Here, however, two meanings of "the world" are both viable: the creation viewed in a neutral sense or the realm of evil. With the latter meaning, the statement claims God loves even those in the grips of evil. Jesus later prays that the disciples be sent into the world as he was sent (17:18), and still later the risen Christ sends the disciples on a mission into the world, again as God sent him (20:21). God seeks to redeem a creation that is alienated from its Creator and commissions the church to participate in that divine redemption in the same way God sent Christ into the world to redeem it. Here "eternal life" is contrasted with "perish." Again, like Ephesians, the contrast between living with or without God is a matter of life and death.
A discussion of judgment ensues after these powerful statements in verses 14-16. The heart of verses 17-21 is that God does not send the divine Son into the world for the purposes of "condemning" (or more literally "judging"). Indeed, God desires to rescue the world, not judge it. Verse 18 suggests that people actually judge themselves by how they respond to Christ. This idea represents part of what has been called the "realized eschatology" of the fourth Gospel. The judgment usually thought of at the end time of history (or after death) occurs in the present in how we respond to Christ. The presence of judgment in the here and now parallels the evangelist's conviction that eternal life is already a present possibility for believers (e.g., 5:24). God does not intend judgment. However, the division between those who believe in Christ and those who do not is a consequence of the offer of eternal life.
Verses 19-21 state briefly the nature of the judgment that occurs because of Christ. The revelation is "light," but some "love darkness" (see 1:3b-5 and 9). John's portrayal of Jesus' teachings includes a realism. Some are comfortable in their separation from God and will reject the offer of a relationship with God. Note, however, that our deeds are what exhibit our attachment to a life of separation from God ("darkness," vv. 19b-20) as well as our communion with God (v. 21). We are more comfortable if that evil side of us is hidden away and not illumined for others to see. The converse of this hiding is living the truth (v. 21). The words "truth" and "true" in the fourth Gospel usually refer to the revelation of God in Christ. "Do what is true" means living by what we know of God through Christ. If we do that, others will recognize that our "deeds have been done in God" (see 13:34-35). Behavior or lifestyle displays our commitment.
When this Gospel reading is laid alongside the theme of seeking aid, we see how clearly it invites us to accept the help God offers in Christ. God seeks us out of love, and therefore we can seek divine help without fear or hesitancy. Most important is that this openness to help assumes God's loving desire as opposed to judgment. Like Martin Luther once did and many still do, we are inclined to see only the wrathful face of God. What all our lessons stress is the commitment of the divine will to rescue us. If there is judgment, we bring it on ourselves by our stubborn refusal of God's caring aid. Seeking God's aid is recognizing who we are, what we need, and where we can find it. This Lent we learn to seek God's aid without reluctance and most certainly without fear.
FIRST LESSON FOCUS
By Elizabeth Achtemeier
Numbers 21:4-9
In our gospel lesson for today, Jesus says to Nicodemus, "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" (John 3:14-15). What on earth is Jesus referring to? What is this serpent that he talks about, that Moses lifted up in the wilderness? Obviously, our Lord was referring to the story that we heard for our Old Testament text this morning. Jesus knows his Bible, the Old Testament, through and through, and often he refers to some event in that testament, or the gospel writers will quote some verse from that book. Both portions of our scripture -- Old Testament and New -- form one long history of God's dealings with his people Israel, and so it is not surprising that Jesus is referring to this story in Numbers 21.
In that story, the Israelites have been delivered from their slavery in Egypt. They have entered into covenant with the God who has redeemed them. They have had God's commandments given to them as the guides for their new life as a freed people. Now they are slogging wearily through the heat, the dust, and the dangers of the Arabian desert, on their way toward the land that God has promised them. God goes before them day and night, his presence with them symbolized by the ark of the covenant. And every day God graciously feeds them with his manna from heaven.
Despite all of that care by God, the Israelites are not very happy campers. Occasionally they run out of water or food and complain to their leader Moses. But God mercifully always supplies such necessities. Yet that does not satisfy the murmuring and grumbling travelers. They want something better. "We loathe this worthless food!" they tell Moses (v. 5). Once they even complained, "We remember the fish we ate in Egypt for nothing, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic; but now our strength is dried up, and there is nothing at all but this manna to look at" (Numbers 11:5-6). Talk about a lack of gratitude! God graciously feeds them every day with his bread from heaven, and they want something better!
Surely the Israelites are very much like us in our ingratitude for God's gifts. Every day, the Lord guides us and loves us; everyday he forgives our faults; every day he surrounds us with the beauty of his world, and sends on us his sun and rain; every morning his mercies are new, and every evening his care guards our sleep. And what do we say? "There is nothing but this manna to look at! We loathe this worthless food!"
It is no wonder that God gets disgusted with his people sometimes and has to teach them -- and us -- in a radical fashion. And so in our text, God sends fiery serpents among the Israelites to bite them and cause their death. And it is sometimes when we experience some tragedy that we realize our fault. So the Israelites repent of their grumbling ingratitude to Moses, and Moses prays for them to the Lord, fulfilling that prophetic function of interceding in prayer for his people.
As a result, God in his mercy forgives his people and instructs Moses in the way of healing. "Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a pole; and every one who is bitten, when he sees it, he shall live" (v. 8). Yes, God judges our sinful ways and sometimes we pay the penalty for them. But God's mercy and love for us are first and foremost, and God himself also furnishes the means of our forgiveness and healing. Mind you, the Israelites have to respond to God's means; they have to look at that bronze serpent on the pole. But the way to healing and life comes from God, and not from the sinful people.
It's a very strange story, isn't it? Lying behind it is a long tradition associated with serpents. We still preserve some of that history in the symbol of medicine in our time, which has the picture of a serpent wrapped around a pole. And by fiery serpents, our story probably wants us to understand that these are not ordinary snakes, but mysterious creatures unlike other serpents and sent by God (cf. Isaiah 14:29; 30:6). In addition, some would say that the story is a superstitious account of magic, because in ancient times people thought that they could annul the power of a dangerous creature by making an image of it and worshiping it. Apparently, when the later Israelites worshiped in Solomon's temple, they had the figure of a bronze serpent there, and in the reform that was carried out by King Hezekiah in the eighth century B.C., Hezekiah had the figure of the serpent removed because the people were burning incense to it (2 Kings 18:4). But that is a distortion of this text. There is no worship of the serpent on the pole here in Numbers 21, and both the fiery serpents and the bronze serpent on the pole that Moses erects are instruments of God -- of the God who cannot be manipulated by any sort of magic. This text is an account primarily of God's actions toward his chosen people -- the account of both his judgment and his forgiving mercy. From that standpoint, it is a text that we need to ponder, because we in the church are also God's chosen folk, making our way toward the promised land of the Kingdom of God, and slogging, sometimes wearily, through the dryness and dangers of our life. Our text tells us as we journey through the ups and downs of everyday that God deals with us in both judgment and mercy, but that always, always, there is healing and life for us from the hand of our Lord. Yes, the healing comes when we repent and accept directions from our God. And life comes only through the means that the Lord of life has given us.
But the Lord our God has given us those means of healing and life, hasn't he? He has given them through Jesus Christ who recalls this ancient story from Numbers for us. Jesus tells Nicodemus and us in our New Testament lesson that if he is lifted up on the cross, as Moses lifted up that bronze serpent for the Israelites, whoever trusts in him and his saving sacrifice will have eternal life. No more eternal death in the wilderness of our days, you see. No more futility and fear before any hardship that confronts us. No more longing for the fleshpots of sin's slavery. No more belief that something can separate us from the love of God. No, good Christian friends. Lift high the cross and Jesus Christ upon it! And find healing for your souls and life eternal both now and forever!
