An alternative homily for Lent 4B |  John 3:14-21

It is an odd place to begin the story: with the snake.

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 have eternal life.

The lectionary cuts off the part where Nicodemus comes to Jesus in the night, looking for him, seeking him out.

But we begin with the snake. The snake which reminds us of the incident in Numbers we also read Sunday.

And the LORD said to Moses, “Make a poisonous serpent, and set it on a pole; and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live.”

An odd story for Jesus to go back to. An odd story for Jesus to find important. Odd, too, that we might ignore what it is trying to tell us.

The people, have been liberated from Egypt, have been in the desert for a long time, have received the Law and, after all that GOD has already done for them, they are still in the desert and are still grumbling. Seriously grumbling. We don’t have any food! Well, we have food, but we don’t like it! I’m starting to think we are all supposed to be put in mind of our children (and our being children) about the food put before them (us).

CHILD: I hate ham!

PARENT: You love ham! You ate all of my ham just two days ago.

CHILD: But I hate ham now!

[maybe a true story]

I think this is an important place to enter into our Scripture anyway. This group, wandering and grumbling are known as the Children of Israel, and this GOD who has liberated them, protected them, raised them up, given them rules and order, and is preparing them for life in a place, with one another: there is little wonder where the parental image of GOD comes from.

And the snake that is lifted up, the one put on a pole, brings healing to the poisoned.

The purpose of the book we call Numbers, is to continuously remind the Children of Israel that the one responsible for their freedom is GOD. The one responsible for their safety is GOD. The one responsible for their future is GOD. Not them. GOD. GOD is a god of saving and healing and redeeming.

In using this lesson, Jesus compares the Son of Man, the Human One, to the snake. He isn’t Moses. And He isn’t GOD in this equation. Not that Jesus is the Divine One, but that Jesus is the Human One. Elsewhere, he eschews the use of Messiah to describe him. Instead, he calls himself The Human One.

To Jesus, then, he is the vessel, the very Act of GOD. Not the one who raises the vessel or the one doing the saving. He is the instrument by which the Act of GOD occurs.

Jesus doesn’t argue that he is GOD or that he possesses the powers of GOD. He doesn’t pretend to be GOD to the people. Nor does he consider himself co-equal with GOD. He, like the snake, is the very act of GOD.

Here, Jesus is speaking heretically. Heretically to later Christian thought about the nature of Jesus as the Christ/Messiah. But in a totally orthodox understanding of Jewish relationship to GOD.

To Jesus, he isn’t the saving one, the means by which we receive grace: grace is entirely GOD’s domain. His humanity is the Act of GOD.

This is why the image of the snake, lifted up to bring the healing power of GOD to the people bitten by snakes is such a provocative and appropriate image for Jesus, because it is Jesus’s coming as The Human One, who will bring the healing power of GOD to our humanity. With echoes back further than Numbers, to Genesis and a serpent, a tree, and a piece of fruit.

Knowledge it offers. Good and evil. You can know it if you eat!

And the great undoing of humanity comes with knowledge–not intelligence, but in the recognizing and comprehending both good and evil. It comes in leaving behind our createdness and approaching, coming near to GOD.

Through Jesus, then, The Human One is the great healing of humanity, coming like the snake lifted high, healing those bitten by our humanness. This time, GOD’s healing comes through the very knowledge of good and evil, light and dark, honesty and deception. It comes in the light of openness and hope. It comes to light our way to the darkest corners of our souls. It comes as human and natural, not like some magic trick or great illusion.

[also check out the sermon I preached yesterday, “Not Afraid of the Dark“.]