Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up.

One of the things that I would like to do someday would be to assemble, all in one place, the stories and phrases from the Old Testament that Jesus used, the stories and phrases that had a special appeal to him, that helped to define his faith. I think that for any of us in the business of public presentations, the quotes that we cite and the stories that we allude to give insights into our souls and into our hearts. Which means that I probably should lay off of the Jimmy Buffett and try to impress you with some Willie Shakespeare . . . except that it is probably too late.

But I think it would be helpful to see, in times of sorrow and loneliness and temptation and anger, in all of the emotional seasons of the soul that he went through, which passages did he look to for consolation and strength and courage and faith and Shalom? Because then I can look there too and I can see how he applied it and I can learn to apply it myself in my own storms and stresses of life, can’t you see how helpful that would be? And maybe the reason that I have never done that is, well, I knew that I would have to deal with the odd story of the snakes in the wilderness.

This is one of those Old Testament stories that I sometimes wish had never been written, and when it gets the endorsement of Jesus it makes it even more uncomfortable for me.

It is a weird story, isn’t it?

Here’s what is going on in the Old Testament.

The people of God are going through one of their negative times where they complain about Moses and God and what should be happening in their lives and how much better things were in Egypt.

And suddenly there is an onslaught of snakes in the camp and people are being bitten and dying and fear is running through them. The solution is, Moses makes a bronze snake and sticks it on a pole and anyone who is bitten merely has to look at the snake and they are made well.

If only it were that easy, huh?

Could you imagine if we simply hung the source of our misery on a pole and every time we were plagued by it, we looked up at it and we were healed?

How wonderful that would be!

We could each have our individual poles stuck where we could see them and we could decorate them with the things that plaque us or with symbols of them.

I would have a Yankee hat and a scale and a snow shovel and that would eliminate so many miseries in my life!

We could have a congregational pole where we put a picture of a parking space and rather than ride around looking for somewhere to park, it would just magically appear!

And it would be wonderful to have a national pole with a map of Iraq and a picture of a family in our area living in poverty and all of our national pain would come to an end.

It would be something like those commercials with the magic business binoculars.

But it wouldn’t work, you know that and I know that.

Simply nailing our problems to a pole can’t relieve our problems.

So why did Jesus turn to this story?

I mean he knew better, didn’t he?

Or did he

Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up. Whatever actually happened in that Sinai desert with the fiery serpents, this much is clear to me. The people were healed when they looked toward the thing that was causing them so much discomfort and misery.

Or, as the hymn writer puts it:
Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take, the clouds you so much dread Are big with mercy, and shall break in blessings on your head.

And there, in the early Chapters of John’s poetry, filled with symbols and metaphors, Jesus places himself in the position of the serpent.

If I am reading that correctly Jesus is saying I am there in that which you fear, I am the the source of so much of your pain and discomfort and misery.

Christ identifies himself with the serpents.

Now I want to be both careful and clear as to how I say this.

But if Christ came to model for us what life is supposed to be, in our relationships with each other, with God, in our priorities and our pleasures, and if he came to provide us with the means to live such lives, what happens when we don’t?

What happens when we don’t love God and love our neighbors?

What happens when we don’t sustain the house of the Lord as a Holy place?

What happens when we don’t forgive 7 times 70 times?

What happens when we love money more than faithfulness?

What happens when the gender or color or politics of another are more important than the content of the hearts?

What happens when we reject the Prince of Peace as our leader and cling to the leaders of this world for security?

What happens when we ignore the poor and the outcast and the hungry and the homeless?

What happens when we allow harm to come to the children?

Let me suggest that what happens is that we are poisoned as surely as if we are bitten by a snake.

Let me suggest that what happens is that when we have encountered and rejected the terribly demanding love of God, our lives are poisoned.

Let me suggest that most, if not all of our miseries and heartaches torture us because of Christ, because he has presented us with life, full and rich and fat and joyous and abundant and eternal – and we have rejected it and we are suffering for that rejection. Not as a punishment but as a natural outcome.

You see, it is Christ himself who causes our pain.

He says that we are to live with a spirit of generosity, pouring our affection out upon those whose paths cross ours, and we hoard it like emotional misers, not wanting to be too involved or too vulnerable.

And so we suffer.

Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up.

He causes our suffering because he makes us aware of all that life could and should be, and then we see him – in this Lenten season - on his cross and we are healed of all that truly tortures us.

I was at a wedding, last Saturday, one of Emily’s college roommates was married at a Roman Catholic Church and I found myself drawn to the crucifix draped in purple. Now I understand and embrace the reasons that our cross – in our tradition – is empty. We live on this side of Easter and our Lord is no longer on the cross but on the right hand of God the Father and I’m not about to lead a movement toward placing a crucifix in a Reformed Church, however for a few minutes last Saturday it occurred to me that during this season of Lent we need to spend some time looking toward the one, on his pole who has the power to heal us from the things that sicken us and threaten us the most.

And not just us, in this obscure corner of God’s kingdom, although surely we need to look to him. But our nation, in these troubled times, we need to look to him to be healed of the bigotry and lust for vengeance. One of the hardest and holiest things for us to do as Christians in the nation is to pray for our own soldiers and for those of Iraq, to pray for George Bush and for Saddam Hussain – some will say “I won’t”, but Christ demands that we pray for our enemies, how can we not?

And it is not accidental – nothing is in John’s gospel – that this passage about Christ being lifted up like the snake in the wilderness introduces the claim that God’s love is not for Israel alone, but God so loved the world . . .

Not just Israel, but Rome also, and not just Rome, but American also, and not just America, but Iraq also, and not just Christians, but Muslims also, and the rich, and the poor, and white and the black, and the straight and the gay, and the whole world. Christ has been lifted up for the whole world that God so loves.

If we start with that perspective, how can we limit our prayers? How can we not pray for peace? How can we not love as freely and as undeservedly as we have been loved? How can we measure our own failures and not forgive others? Christ causes us many, many problems.

He lays claim to our hearts, our words, our thoughts, our wallets, our calendars, our relationships, our allegiances and our lives. And the pieces we hold back become ill and bothersome, infected, but when we look to him, hanging and dying and yet living more fully in those hours of faithfulness than most men and women have ever lived, then we are healed and we too begin to live lives worthy of being called Abundant and Eternal!

We look to him in these closing weeks of Lent, we look to him in these dark times, we look to him and we begin to see the life for which we have been created, we look to him and we are healed.

Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up.