____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
Snakes and Faith
based on John 3:14-21, Numbers 21:4-9
Rev. Karen A. Goltz
By and
large I’m a fan of the three-year lectionary. Those who developed it did a
fairly decent job of including a large part of the bible, and of organizing the
narratives around the seasons of the church year in a way that encourages
greater depth of understanding and contemplation. It provides the average
church-goer a good exposure to the breadth of the Word of God, and it forces us
preachers to wrestle with difficult texts we probably wouldn’t choose on our
own, and not just preach over and over again on our six favorite passages.
But there are some choices the lectionary
people made that were just ill-conceived. Today’s gospel lesson, the way it’s
presented, is one of them.
Many pre-printed bulletins begin this reading
with the words, “Jesus said” in brackets. OK, fair enough to indicate who’s
speaking if the verse you’re starting with doesn’t specify it. But what
isn’t fair is suggesting that the first verse of today’s reading is the
beginning of something. In fact, the word that the bracketed “Jesus said”
replaces is “and.” Our reading actually begins, “And just as Moses
lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up.”
Who begins a sentence with the word “and?” Someone who is in the middle of
saying something important. Today’s gospel lesson begins in the middle of a
conversation between Jesus and a Pharisee named Nicodemus. But you’d never know
that from the way the lesson is presented.
Nicodemus came to Jesus by night with some
questions. Unlike most of the exchanges between Jesus and the Pharisees,
Nicodemus isn’t trying to test or trap Jesus in his words, and he’s not trying
to challenge Jesus in any way. He acknowledges that Jesus is a teacher who has
come from God, reasoning, correctly, that no one can do what Jesus is doing
apart from God. Jesus tells him that no one can see the kingdom of God without
being born an-o-then, which can be translated as ‘from
above’ or ‘again.’ Nicodemus understands this literally and questions how this
can be possible, given that a person cannot re-enter his mother’s womb and be
born a second time. So Jesus clarifies and tells him that no one can enter the
kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit. He goes on to say,
“What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit.
Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’ The
wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know
where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the
Spirit.” [John 3:6-8] Nicodemus is confused, and asks how these things can be.
Jesus answers him, “Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand
these things? Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to
what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you
about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you
about heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except the one who has
descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And 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 not perish, but may have eternal life.” [John 3:10-15] Our
gospel reading for today picks up just as Jesus is getting to the crux of what
he’s trying to explain to Nicodemus.
With his words, Jesus is suggesting that he can
tell people about heavenly things because he himself is the Son of Man who has
descended from heaven. He’s been there; he’s seen it. He knows what he’s
talking about. He also knows that he’s going to be crucified, and he compares
himself to the serpent on the pole erected by Moses in the wilderness. We heard
that story a few minutes ago, in our reading from Numbers. In that story God
instructed Moses to craft a bronze serpent and place it on a pole high above the
Israelites, who were dying from a plague of poisonous snakes. Because God
willed it so, anyone who looked at that bronze serpent would be able to
withstand the lethal dose of toxic venom in his or her body. The idea of
looking at a metal snake for a miraculous cure may seem silly, but it worked.
Even sillier is the idea that belief in a convicted criminal nailed to a cross
might free someone from death and provide eternal life. But that’s exactly what
Jesus is suggesting by that comparison.
Do we need to know that Jesus is talking to
Nicodemus in order to understand that bit about the snakes? No, we don’t. But
it is important when Jesus gets to the part about people loving darkness,
rather than light, and that people who do evil hate the light and do not come
into the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. Remember, Nicodemus
came to Jesus by night, under the cover of darkness, probably because he dared
not risk being seen talking to Jesus. After all, Nicodemus was a Pharisee, a
leader of the Jews, and could not be seen conversing seriously with this crazy
man who had just upended all the tables in the temple and berated those who sold
sacrificial offerings. So he hid himself in darkness and sought out Jesus.
Seeking Jesus is not an evil act. Nicodemus
feared that it might be perceived as such by his peers, but his peers are not
the ultimate authority. Sure, they could make his life miserable; he could lose
his job, the respect of the people, his social standing. But what is all that
compared to the promise of eternal life? Jesus said, “Those who believe in the
Son of Man 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.”
God does not condemn those who do not believe; they live enslaved to the
opinions of others, the lure of wealth, the fickleness of popularity or public
opinion, and the fleeting sensations of instant gratification. Believing in
Christ would free them from all that, but they choose to remain in their own,
familiar prisons.
So how does one believe? How can someone make
themselves believe in something? I remember when I was a child I read the book
Sara Crewe by Frances Hodgson Burnett. She later expanded it into The
Little Princess. I remember being struck by the description of Sara’s
relationship with her doll, Emily, who was Sara’s only friend and companion.
The book said, “She wanted to believe, or pretend to believe, that Emily
understood and sympathized with her.” Sara’s pretending was what got her
through some very difficult times. But as much as she wanted to believe that
she was a little princess living in comfort, she knew that she was in fact a
forlorn, neglected orphan being mistreated by the mistresses of her former
boarding school, and that in the end she was only pretending.
Can pretending to believe lead to real belief?
Not exactly. But one can act in faith, even when the act seems ludicrous, and
that act can make it easier for us to receive the gift of belief. For example:
Nicodemus comes up in John’s gospel again. After the crucifixion, after Jesus
has been condemned and executed as a criminal, he and Joseph of Arimathea go to
Pilate to request Jesus’ body, take it down from the cross, anoint it with about
100 pounds of spices and aloes, wrap it gently in a linen cloth, and lay it in a
tomb. The risk to him and his reputation is no less; if anything it’s greater.
Jesus is dead; there’s nothing left to believe in. Yet in the light of day,
Nicodemus comes to Jesus and tends him. He came into the light, so that it
could be clearly seen that his deeds were done in God. I don’t know if he
actually believed, or, if he did, what exactly he believed in, but he remembered
the words spoken to him by Jesus in the darkness, and he acted in faith. And
the rest, as they say, is history.
We are surrounded by poisonous snakes. The
venom from their bites courses through our veins. But 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. Act in faith. In the bright light of day, in clear
view of everyone, do something ludicrous. When logic and reason argue against
it, put your trust in the one who was condemned as a criminal and crucified on a
crossbeam two thousand years ago. Because while the metal snake had no power of
its own, the one who was crucified does, and he turned the instrument of his
torture and execution into a symbol of victory over death. That crossbeam did
not have the final word; and Jesus rose from the dead and continues to live to
this day. Logic cannot comprehend it, but logic is an earthly thing. Our Lord
and Savior Jesus Christ transcends earthly things, and invites us to experience
heavenly things. The snakes will still surround us; their venom will still
infect us, but snake venom has no power in heaven, and the Son of God has
brought heaven down to earth, into our everyday reality. This is what he offers
to us. Will you act in faith and look up to him? Or would you rather keep your
eye on the snakes and dance with them yourself?
