Slithering Serpents
4 Lent, Year B Numbers 21:4-9 John 3;14-21
St. John’s March 10, 2024
The Rev. Robin Teasley
From Mount Hor the Israelites set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; but the people became impatient on the way. The people spoke against God and against Moses, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we detest this miserable food.” Then the Lord sent poisonous serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many Israelites died. The people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned by speaking against the Lord and against you; pray to the Lord to take away the serpents from us.” So Moses prayed for the people. And the Lord said to Moses, “Make a poisonous serpent, and set it on a pole; and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live.” So Moses made a serpent of bronze, and put it upon a pole; and whenever a serpent bit someone, that person would look at the serpent of bronze and live. Numbers 21:4-9
Jesus said, “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. 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. But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.”
John 3:14-21
So, we managed to set our clocks ahead last night and we have faithfully struggled in here this morning after losing an hour of sleep, only to find a church full of serpents. After hearing the readings, if you suffer from ophidiophobia, you are probably wide awake now! Ophidiophobia is the fear of snakes.
What is it about a snake that bothers so many of us? In the classic film “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” Indiana Jones also suffers from ophidiophobia. On his trek to locate the Ark of the Covenant, he finds himself at the Well of Souls. As he peers down into the well he sees, by the light of his torch, that the floor is moving. Snakes! Later, he finds himself trapped in the well with Marion, hands her a torch, and tells her to wave it at anything that slithers, to which Marion replies, “The whole place is slitherin’!”
We seem to have a primal fear of snakes, though snakes have always been a reality of life. Serpents slither through scripture as well, from Genesis to Revelation. The first serpent appears in the book of Genesis, tempting Adam and Eve to look to their own satisfaction rather than to God’s good intention for their lives. In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus called the scribes and Pharisees a brood of vipers. In Mark, when he commissioned the disciples, Jesus said that those who believe will handle serpents and not be hurt. In Luke, Jesus gave the authority to tread on serpents to the Seventy he sent out on mission. Rest assured that in a few minutes, as we commission our new vestry members, we will not be asking them to handle serpents!
In the passage from Numbers though, the Israelites are doing some snake handling, and without success. The Israelites have become impatient in the wilderness, and they are grumbling yet again about what they don’t have. The people spoke against God and against Moses saying, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we detest this miserable food.”
They are no longer thankful for God’s provision of manna; they are spending all their time and energy focusing on the negatives of life, and those serpents at their heels, and it is literally killing them. They have taken their eyes off of Yahweh as they battle the serpents. And it’s not working. In desperation they beg Moses to ask God to take away the serpents. So, God had Moses craft a serpent out of bronze and attach it to a pole. The people were instructed to look up at the serpent, whenever they were bitten, and they would live.
Notice that this doesn’t mean that they were not bitten or that the serpents went away, but simply that those who looked up and not down, did not die of their wounds. In their distress, they realized that what might kill them could also give them life. And we know that an extract of poison from a snake, the antivenom, does provide the antidote for a potentially deadly bite. Let me be clear that I do not believe God punishes us by sending bad things our way. Bad things happen. Serpents exist.
At some point we will all have various serpents biting at our heels. What are some of the serpents in our lives, those poisonous temptations or uncontrollable circumstances that cause us to take our eyes off of God? Perhaps we are being chased by the serpents of greed, anger, or an inability to forgive. Maybe the serpents are nothing we ever asked for – a divorce, loss of a loved one, addiction, or unemployment. Maybe we sense the serpents of fear and anxiety at our heels in the midst of the current political chaos and global conflict.
At the moment, our world seems overrun by slithering serpents of all kinds. The whole place is slitherin’! Everywhere we look we can find something biting at our heels, attempting to distract us from what we know to be true.
The truth is, the Israelites knew they were better off having escaped bondage in Egypt, a life with no hope or promise, and yet they were unable to see God leading them into new life. They allowed temporal fears and frustrations to bite away at their peace of mind and their belief, their trust, in God’s provision.
As we find ourselves about halfway along our Lenten path, what serpents do we see? Are there places of brokenness in our lives that might hold a particular invitation for us in this season? How do we keep our eyes and hearts open for the healing and new life that God offers, often in unexpected ways?
In our gospel text, Jesus offers Nicodemus a path to new life. We don’t hear the first part of their conversation today, but Nicodemus has come to Jesus at night, in the dark, because he has his own serpents nipping at his heels, and he’s looking for some healing and deliverance of his own; he’s looking for the judgment of God, the reign of God, the Messiah, because the current reality of first century Palestine is one of chaos.
Using a story from Numbers that Nicodemus would have known well, Jesus described the healing work he had come to do. “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness,” he told Nicodemus, “so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.” In reminding Nicodemus of God’s faithfulness to Israel in their wilderness time, he lifts the gaze of Nicodemus up from his questions and fears to see that the kingdom of God is indeed near.
Jesus became human that he might bring light into our darkness, and healing for the venomous events of life. Jesus became incarnate to show us the way to our salvation. “Indeed God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”
The circumstances of our lives sometimes lead us into tempting places, where all we can see is the sinful way, the selfish way. John’s Gospel calls it darkness, and when we are in the darkness it can look like the only way. And when we are in that darkness, we may blame the circumstances, blame others, or blame the serpents from our past.
There is a deep connection between what wounds us and what has the power to heal us. Only by looking at that which hurts us can we begin to heal from it, and so our work is not to blame but to move beyond the serpents, to look to God’s unfailing love and provision. Moses lifted up a bronze serpent in the desert that healed people merely by looking at it. Christ has been lifted up for our eternal healing. Today we only have to look to the love of God in Jesus.
The light of Christ shines in the darkness of any painful experience when we look up to God and trust in God’s power and healing love. As we do this, what looks like pain, loss, and death will be transformed into the very thing that heals us.
Jesus, the Savior and Redeemer of the world brings us out of error into truth, out of sin into righteousness, out of death into life.
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