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4th SUNDAY IN LENT
Numbers 21:4-9-Snake on a Pole
Like displeased summer campers writing home, the Israelites complain bitterly: the food
and water-not enough and tastes bad; the itinerary-have to go the long way around Edom
because egress through it is denied. Worse, these not-so-happy campers send their whining
to the wrong mailbox and God judges them by sending venomous snakes whose bites shock them
into seeing the errors of their ways. They plead with Moses and God provides a remedy-a
snake on a pole. To look on the pole was to recover and live for another day. To look
another way was to end the journey.
Ephesians 2:1-10-The Christian Epic: Parts I & II
Paul describes life in two paradigms-the "past tense" life and the present
"in Christ" life. The first paradigm includes a life that was controlled by
outside influences, a life driven by personal cravings and self-gratification, and a life
which brought on God’s wrath. On the other side of the ledger is the new life that
God gives. This life is nothing short of a resurrection-Christians have been made alive,
raised, and seated in Christ. The new life is marked by God’s kindness, salvation,
grace, and a restoration of the image of God. Spliced between the past and present tense
lives is the divine methodology. Paul says that God, motivated out of love for us did it
all; made it possible for any human being to die to one life in order to be raised to the
other.
John 3:14-21-Savior on a Pole
Jesus has presumably concluded his clandestine meeting with Nicodemus, yet continues
the teaching. Verse 14 references the story of our first lesson, so we’ll need to
investigate why this story catches the Johannine Jesus’ eye. Theologically, Jesus
asserts that he is like that snake on a pole-as Moses lifted up the snake, so the action
of being "lifted up" describes Jesus, presumably because later in the gospel
that’s exactly what will happen to the Son of Man. There is a second theological peg
that fits from the snake story: belief. People had to trust the snake on the pole to gain
their healing. So here, the writer says that belief in Jesus is a criterion for eternal
life.
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[1] Some, however, see the conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus lasting all
the way to the end of verse 15.
