Second Sunday of Lent, 8 March 2020
Keasden, Clapham, Austwick
'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.’
You may know something about the work of the Royal Army Medical Corps. Those medics working in the most extreme situations, who bring healing into difficult places. [1] And on their uniform, the insignia of The Royal Army Medical Corps, is a serpent lifted up on a pole.
The serpent lifted up on a pole is known as The Rod of Asclepius. In ancient Greek mythology Asclepius, the son of Apollo, practiced medicine. And the symbol of the serpent refers to the fascinating medical fact that some poisons, taken in the right dosage, can become a remedy. Products made from the bodies of snakes were known to have medicinal properties in ancient times, and in ancient Greece, snake venom was 'prescribed' sometimes as a form of therapy. [2]
The snake and the pole are two things in tension - after all, people use poles to beat off or kill snakes who are threatening them. But in the ancient world they put the snake and the pole together and they became a sign of healing. From the ancient Greeks to the people of Moses. [3]
The book of Numbers describes the people of Israel following the Lord out of Egypt and into the wilderness, in search of a promised land, but complaining along the way. And how the Lord, angered by the people's complaints, sent fiery serpents among them, which bit the people, so that many of them died. When Moses asked the LORD to take the serpents away, the LORD said to Moses, "Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live." So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, that person could look at the bronze serpent and live. [4]
The serpent lifted up on a pole was a sign of God's healing and forgiveness in a difficult place - in their wilderness the people experienced a sort of resurrection.
And so to Jesus, in late night conversation with a highly-placed religious leader, Nicodemus, a man impressed by the signs which Jesus was performing but struggling to get to the heart of Jesus' teachings. Jesus takes Nicodemus back to Moses to try to explain.'[For] 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.’ - he said.
Here, recalling how those who looked on the serpent on the pole were restored to life, Jesus shows Nicodemus how he, Jesus, is the new sign of healing in the difficult place where Israel was at that time; that Jesus is God's new way of bringing healing and forgiveness to the people; an experience of resurrection: of eternal life.
Eternal life. That’s not something which only happens to you after you die: it begins right now for those who believe. Being ‘born again’ means being reborn, now, to enjoy a quality of life in this world which connects with that other world to come. Jesus, the unending source of life itself, invited Nicodemus into that deep relationship with him - starting there and then. And we can take this message into our hearts today; we can hear Jesus, the unending source of life itself, inviting us into a deep and everlasting relationship with him - starting here and now. [5]
The cross is a sign of suffering bringing healing. But Jesus’ message didn’t stop with the Son of Man being lifted up on the cross. He wanted to help Nicodemus grasp something we should try to grasp this Lent - that the cross is not the most important thing. That eternal life doesn't begin at death. It begins when you open your heart to the new loving liberating relationship which you can have with the resurrected God.
In John 3.16, Jesus tells Nicodemus and us that more than anything, God loves the world. Which is very good news indeed. Jesus, the unending source of life itself, gives his whole life, his whole self to the world and offers every person, and all creation, eternal life. It’s all about life, there’s no place for death. So let us be careful not to put the cross at the heart of our faith, but the Saviour. The necessary sacrifice of blood and flesh belongs to other idolatries - Jesus stands for only life, abundant life, eternal life.
Our creeds, you’ll notice, they jump straight from Jesus’ birth to Jesus’ death as if his life itself has no significance. [6] But the Saviour offered eternal life to Nicodemus there and then, well before the events which put him on the cross, and it’s living the life of Jesus and walking in the way of Jesus which will heal us, save us, in the here and now.
This transforms our thinking about Church and the Christian life. ‘Rather than an institutional guarantee for an afterlife, Christian identity is a profound journey of human change in this life, one always intended by a God of unimaginable love and vitality. The resurrection of Jesus is a pledge of a transformed Earth where all of history is invited into a fullness of life, where violence has no part.’ [7]
And so the story of the serpent and the pole offers an 'in' to all those who have lost faith in the old ways of seeing things, the old religious ways with bloody, fiery, sacrificial acts at their heart; the bruising idea that if we kill something on an altar or a cross then God will favour us. The story of the serpent and the pole is good news to those who are sickened by the suggestion that God is an angry jealous deity who condemns us, and who search instead for a God who walks beside us, suffers with us. The serpent and the pole bring us close to a God who turns the poison of the world into a means of healing, a God who did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him, as Jesus said. [8]
Jesus invited Nicodemus to turn away from the old religion towards Jesus, to receive healing in a difficult place. Jesus offers eternal life right here, right now, to those who believe. There's hope for us all, in the way that Jesus retells the story of the serpent and the pole.
Notes
Based on previous sermons on this passage, preached in Somerset, 2017, and Devon, 2011.
[1] See video Life as a combat medic on the British Army website. Quotes here were taken from an earlier version of this web page, now removed.
[2] Wikipedia: Rod of Asclepius.
[3] Paul Nuechterlein, Girardian Reflections on the Lectionary, Notes on Lent 4B.
[4] Numbers 21.6-9 (English Standard Version)
[5] Paul Nuechterlein, Girardian Reflections on the Lectionary, Notes on Lent 4B.
[6] Church of England Common Worship Creeds and authorized affirmations of faith.
[7] Anthony Bartlett, Seven Stories: How to Study and Teach the Nonviolent Bible, pages 8-9.
[8] John 3.17.
Comments