For five Sundays in Lent, we walk through the covenants of the Hebrew Bible, remembering the ways in which God has made and kept covenants with God’s own chosen people throughout history. At the same time, we are called to remember the covenant that God makes with us through our baptism. Where the rubber meets the road – as the saying goes – is how we live out that covenant through the choices we make, the way we live, and the way we embody our baptised life.
We remember God’s promises to us – we should always remember. We repent: turn back or turn around to God because we aware that no matter how hard we try, we always miss the mark. We re-commit ourselves daily to our baptismal covenant, seeking restoration and renewal.
So, we seek restoration and renewal. That sounds kind of odd, really – so much of our language is aimed at always placing God as the centre and source of restoration and renewal – and that is right. But if God is the centre, then it means that if we are on the outskirts there is a little bit of moving to do.
Or, as my mother tells a story about my grandmother and grandfather: my mother’s older brother was going for a date with the young lady who eventually became his wife; as my future aunt got into the car, she scooted over until she was in the centre seat, right beside my uncle, who was driving.
And my grandmother turned to my grandfather with a sigh, and said, “we used to do that all the time. Why don’t we do that anymore, Jack?”
The story goes, my grandfather turned and looked at her, kind of affronted. All he said in reply was “I ain’t moved.”
Does that sound kind of familiar? I think that most of us, from time to time, when we slowly become aware that maybe…something…isn’t quite right in our relationship with God. The answer to that is probably that God is the same place, but you moved.
That’s what it was like for the Israelites. They wandered in the desert, received the tablets of the Law, saw – and in some cases, literally saw – God actively being in relationship to them. But there comes a time when they’re just tired of the same old, same old. So they speak against God and Moses: what are you doing? Where are you?
So, this reading from Numbers reminds us of this often-forgotten story about the poisonous snakes. Why snakes? I don’t know. Indiana Jones asked the same question. What I do know, is that by rejecting God’s presence with them, the Israelites are, in effect, choosing death over life. And, curiously enough, God (who could say ‘I know what’s best for you, so just listen’) gives that to them. They get death.
One of the ways that God tends to get our attention is through acts of great dramatic effect. Why? Here’s one reason: because they work. The people go back to Moses, and say ‘oops’. Then God gives Moses some instructions: make a serpent, set it on a pole, and everyone who looks at it will live.
The Israelites demand to know why God isn’t looking after them. They think that God has abandoned them, and they want to know why.
God’s response is: I ain’t moved.
And here’s a good example of (biblically) not being able to see the forest for the trees. I don’t know why it’s a snake. I don’t know why it’s on a pole. I am absolutely certain that there are several hundred pages of commentary on both those questions that will offer deeply meaningful answers to both those questions.
But here’s what I think that serpent on a stick means: it simply means that God is with the people. The means of their restoration has been in their midst all the time; the physical reminder is exactly that – something they can see, and turn to, and know that God is with them: that is restoration. Restoration of hope, of relationship, of wholeness.
Sometimes, when we find that restoration, it’s like the greatest thing in the world. It’s not that everything suddenly becomes better, or clearer, but simply that perhaps it becomes more liveable. Instead of choosing death, we choose life, and the fruits of that choice bring peace.
Nicodemus was a man of great anxiety who sought peace. A leader of the synagogue, he came to Jesus by night to ask if he was the Messiah; our gospel lesson today is the tail end of John’s record of that visit. After their exchange about being ‘born anew,’ Jesus bluntly states what must happen to him in order that the people may live: just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so much the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
Eternal? I like ‘everlasting’ as a translation. And what follows is easily the best-known bible verse, on the website biblegateway.com it is the most searched-for passage: for God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him would not perish, but have eternal life.
Do you know that verse? Do you love it? I know that I do. “For God so loved the world” – that’s good scripture. What follows is a bit of a fishhook, though – “so that everyone who believes in him may not perish.” It kind of implies that if you don’t believe, you may perish. That’s a little tense. That might cause a little anxiety, especially if you’re Nicodemus, and don’t have a clue what Jesus is talking about.
But listen to verses 17 and 18, for as popular as verse 16 is, they get lost in the shuffle: 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.
One good, one a little less good. The world will be saved through God, but those who do not believe are condemned already.
Ouch. How can there be restoration for those of us who, maybe even for a minute, maybe, didn’t believe? What about those who have never heard of Christ? Or what they heard of Jesus was crouched in terms of shame and hate, and they knew that life didn’t grow there?
The thing is, we always read these verse on condemnation like there’s some kind veiled punishment being threatened. But let’s look at them again. Who’s condemned? Who’s doing the condemning? It’s not God, beloved. The language is reflexive – it’s passive. People are condemned because they condemn themselves, choosing death over life in Christ. We condemn ourselves to a life surrounded by death.
Believing in Christ is choosing life, looking upon the one lifted up on the mountain in the wilderness and finding wholeness and restoration. Refusing to look, is choosing the poison of a world that is going to tell you there’s something out there that can fix your problems.
We come – I think everyone comes – seeking restoration. Something isn’t right; something’s broken, tarnished, scuffed, sagged…and we want it to be whole again. Often, we convince ourselves that we can do something to get God’s attention, so that God will come back to us and make everything right again. If we’re good enough, if we do enough, if we do the right thing…the language is endless.
Except the problem is that it’s not God that’s broken. It’s us. In the words of my grandfather: he ain’t moved. It’s not God that needs restoration; it’s us. We – everyone single of us – has been dead through our trespasses and sins. God still loves us, passionately longs for us to see that we are made right with God through Jesus Christ; not through something that we do.
When we seek restoration in our lives, the first thing is to recognize is that it’s not God who needs to be restorated; we do. The second is to realize that we are redeemed through our baptism; we are made worthy and perfect to God through our baptism into Christ. We are united with God – as Paul writes, we are even seated in the heavenly places with him. What is left that needs restoration?
What left? Us. Our identity.
Atonement is a word that we often use to describe Christ’s action on the cross. That’s a good use of that word. But there comes a time for our own atonement, at time when, seeking restoration, seeking to turn and look upon the image on the pole in the wilderness, that we need to first admit that we’ve been poisoned; that we’re dying.
At-one-ment. Not ‘at one’ with God. We don’t do that for ourselves. But we will find that we can be whole – at one – with ourselves, rooted and growing in Christ. That’s restoration. That is the gift of God with us.
Let the people of God say amen.
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