Promises of God: God Lifts Us from Death to Life

Rebecca Sheridan
Sunday, March 14, 2021
John 3:14-21

    When I discuss “remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy,” in confirmation class, we do an exercise to demonstrate why being a part of a church community is important – how our faith is strengthened when we take time to be around other Christians in worship and other activities.  Anyway, the exercise is to select out of a list of different people who you would first choose to be with you if you found yourself stranded on a deserted island.  Most students usually say they’d first pick their family or a carpenter (to build a boat to get off of the island or a house for shelter).  One class, a student said, “I’d pick the comedian first.”  “Ok…why’s that?” I asked.  “Well, it’d be pretty boring to sit all that time waiting to be rescued without some entertainment, plus, you’ve gotta keep your spirits up!”
Who would you pick first to be on a deserted island with you?  What or who is essential for your wellbeing, for your survival?  This past year, there’s been a lot of talk about who and what is essential.  For a while, when everything was really shut down, we realized we could go without getting our hair cut or our nails done longer than we ever have before.  We recognized essential workers whom we often have taken for granted or overlooked – sanitation, grocery store and post office workers in addition to first responders, doctors, and nurses.  A lot of us gave up our usual hobbies and habits – going out to eat, going to a live concert or show, taking public transportation, playing or watching sports.  And now as we ration out limited vaccines, the essential question continues – we’ve prioritized vulnerable groups and people who keep us alive, medical staff, first responders, and people in the food industry, but I wonder, sometimes, like my confirmation student, about the value of the comedian, of the clergy, of the art teacher, of the librarian.  We know more now than in any other time in history about how to keep people alive, and even how to prolong life and live a long life. Valuing life is a Christian value.  But what kind of life are we living, and what kind of life does God want us to live, for the sake of the world? That is the question of what’s really essential that’s been gnawing at me this year.
    So today, we turn our attention to the most essential message of the Christian faith – that Christ’s death and resurrection is God’s essential promise to us.  Today’s Old Testament reading is not an official covenant like the others we’ve looked at so far this Lent.  But in the gospel, Jesus connects this story from Numbers to what Luther called “the gospel in miniature,” the most well-known, essential promise from God that we have as Christians.  “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.”  
In the book of Numbers, we find the Israelites still wandering in the wilderness, at the end of their journey but not yet in the promised land.  We think surviving one year in a global pandemic was rough, try wandering for forty years in the desert.  They are to a point understandably impatient, convinced they are going to die.  They also remind me of my 3- and 5-year-old kids: “I’m hungry, I’m thirsty, I hate this food! I don’t want to eat THAT!”  “Well, how hungry are you then?” would be my response if I were Moses!  The Israelites could’ve used a comedian with them on their desert journey, it seems!  Their sins are so grievous, they are literally dying because of their sins’ consequences.  Their situation is desperate.  They are focused only on basic survival and willing to even turn back to their old ways, to be enslaved, to live differently.  God tells Moses to make a bronze snake, put it on a pole, and whoever looks upon that bronze serpent lives.  God gives the people life in the midst of death and gives them strength and hope to continue on to the promised land, to look forward, instead of back, to a better life.  God’s promise is that we don’t have to settle for survival, but that through the healing power of God we can thrive.
    Moses lifts up the serpent in the wilderness not just to save people from physical death, but to keep their spirits going so that they can make it to the promised land of abundance, a land of freedom, a better life.  Jesus is lifted up on the cross so that all who believe in him may not perish but may have eternal life. We know this verse so well, John 3:16, but let’s take a minute or two to really think about what this means.  The son of God isn’t afraid to give up his life, to die a physical death for us, because simply keeping your heart beating and your lungs breathing is not the most essential thing. Rather, Jesus gives his life for us so that we might have life and have it abundantly and eternally.  We are all “perishable” in the physical sense.  But as Christians, we profess we are imperishable because of Christ’s death and resurrection.  Because God so loves the world…God sees all of his creation, human beings, created in his own image, as essential to save.  This is God’s essential promise, God’s message to us, that God loves us and wants eternal life for us.  Not just that we are able to physically exist another day, but that we might be spiritually healed and whole, eternally.
    As we also reflect on this theme our Stewardship Committee selected for us this year, “Experiencing the Joy of Generosity,” think about those words as they relate to these essential verses in John’s gospel.  God is so generous to us that God gives his only begotten Son for us, lifted up on the cross, lifted up from the tomb, for us.  Why? So that we might experience joy and be generous with all that God has given us.  God gives gifts that we are meant to keep on giving.  Gifts that not only help people stay alive, but gifts that help us and others truly LIVE.
    As we officially enter into the season of spring this week and look forward to a more hopeful summer and fall as more and more people are vaccinated, we can also look forward to the good news of Easter even in Lent.  Just as God turns snakes that were meant to cause death into an object that gives life and healing on that bronze pole, God turns an instrument of torture and death, Christ’s death on the cross, into an instrument of healing and life for the sake of the whole world.  When we look upon a cross, may we see Jesus, the Son of Man and the Son of God lifted up for us so that we can be lifted up along with him – no longer afraid of physical death and confident that we can live life to the fullest because of God’s amazing grace.  Amen.