John 3:14-21

14 And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

16 “For 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.

17 “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. 18 Those who believe in him 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. 19 And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. 20 For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. 21 But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.”

Reflection/Sermon:

I.      Jesus said “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.”

II.     Do you know why Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness?  Because the people of Israel were losing their patience with God.  The Old Testament reading for today was from the book of Numbers, chapter 21.  The people have been in the wilderness for about 40 years, and they are worn-out and ready to quit.  They don’t believe any more in a “promised land” and they don’t trust Moses and they’ve lost faith in God.  So they tell not just Moses — but God too! —

“Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness?  For there is no food and no water, and we detest this miserable food.”

III.    The people were having an insurrection, a revolt against God and Moses.  They wanted to go back to Egypt.  They wanted to go backwards.  Many wore red MEGA hats that said, “Make Egypt Great Again.”  Like Lot’s wife, who turned back to look at Sodom and Gomorrah and turned to salt, they wanted to go backwards.  But without Moses and without God.  They were over with God, divorced. 

So God swarmed them with poisonous snakes and thousands were bitten and died.  The people begged Moses to help. He prayed and God said make a pole and wrap a bronze snake around it and tell the people who were bitten to look at it and they would be saved.

IV.     I used to read this story and think it was a lesson about the “poison” of complaining.  But it’s really a story about losing faith and trust.  In the books of Exodus and Numbers, there are TEN of these stories of complaining, four in Exodus and six in Numbers.  The people complained of thirst and God made water come out of a rock.  They complained of hunger and God gave them mana.  They complained that they were tired of the mana, and God gave them quail.  TheY often said they wanted to go back to Egypt, to the good ol’ days. 

What was really going on here — behind all the complaining — is the people had lost faith in God and they did not want to endure the struggle of moving forward into the unknown.  They knew Egypt — it was familiar — and they wanted to go back.

V.      But when we walk with Jesus, when we walk with God — it’s always to a place we have not been before.  Because we are supposed to be changing.  We don’t want to be the person we were last year, or five, 10, or 20 years ago.  To be spiritually alive we must be “reborn” — every day.  That’s what Jesus told Nicodemus.  Paul said it — he said that he was decreasing as Jesus increased.  For growth to happen, we need to keep moving forward.  If we don’t, the Bible says, we’ll be about as interesting as a block of salt, or someone who only complains.

VI.     To look at Jesus, lifted up, is to see the cross and resurrection as our path forward.  Dying and rising, dying and rising.  Because we have FAITH that God is with us and all will be well, not going backward, but forward into the unknown.  That’s where we encounter God. 

I read reports that on Alexi Navalny’s last day on earth, he was smiling and laughing with people — despite the hunger and the cold that he was subjected to every day.  He trusted Jesus that “blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.”  Navalny believed that God was with him.

VII.    So why not welcome everything that comes into our lives — rather than complain.

Contemplatives have a practice called the Welcoming Prayer.

 1) Feel and sink into what you are experiencing this moment in your body.

2)  “Welcome” what you are experiencing this moment in your body as an opportunity to consent to the Divine Indwelling. 

3) Let go by saying “I let go of my desire for security, affection, control and embrace this moment as it is.”     

This prayer is rooted in faith in God’s continual presence and love.