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February 18, 2007
Facing the Opportunity that Defines Life
Numbers 21: 4-9/John 12: 31-43
February 18th, 2007
I find myself thinking quite a bit these days about the choices and opportunities long ago that led to the work I have done for all these years. How did I go from that young lad so unsure of what to make of the Bible’s guidance in life to a pastor whose task it is to speak to people from the Bible?
I think Moses must have felt like this too. “How did I go from nearly being fed to the Nile crocodiles as a baby to being the one chosen by Almighty God to communicate His word to this difficult mob of Israelites little knowing all history was included in this audience?”
What we read in the Bible describes events that happened day after day as unanticipated as the events that come to you and me in the course of life. There were consequences that came as a result of choices Moses and the Israelites made. Somehow these choices unfolded against the backdrop of a great plan God was working out for the benefit of the whole human race—including you and me.
There are two places in the Gospel of John where the writer refers back to the story Mike just read for us from the Book of Numbers. This was a pivot moment in the life of our ancient forbears in the faith. But they had no idea it was so.
All they knew at the time was that they were weary and fed up with Moses. He had led them through harsh terrain for as many years as it took for babies to reach their mid-thirties. They were near their destination but, to use a basketball term appropriate to our time and place, a near miss is as painful as an air-ball when the game is at stake.
They had just passed Mt. Hor where they had buried Moses’ brother, Aaron. It’s not exactly clear today where Mt. Hor was because the names of places have changed. Some geographers think Mt Hor was the same as Mt. Hermon, a mountain that the psalmist refers to very cheerfully many years later. Its twin peaks are often covered with snow.
Maybe you remember Psalm 133, a psalm that rejoices at the restoration of fellowship between Moses and Aaron. This unity “is like the dew of Hermon that falls on the mountains of Zion! For there the Lord has commanded the blessing, life for evermore.”
But that happy time of reunion between Moses and Aaron in the past was far different from the present. Now Mt. Hor was the place where Moses’ brother had just been buried. The people liked Aaron because he dared to stand up to his little brother, Moses. He was their ally when the going was hard.
Now he was gone. All they had was their own murmuring as a way to vent their feelings. Food and water were scarce. Squeaking wheels get grease. So SQUEAK—NOT PRAY OR TRY.
The people didn’t have the painful duties of leadership as Moses did. Moses too was tired. He no doubt responded to his weariness by imploring God every morning and evening to show him the way to go. Day after day God said merely, “Keep walking.” Tired and impatient the people grumbled.
It is a common human response to difficulty or disappointment. Do we not do our share of this? They spoke against God and Moses. “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water and we loathe this worthless food.” They said it to Moses, but they meant it for God. We may see something positive here. At least they believed that God was leading them, just not in the way they wanted.
God responded to their rebellion. Elsewhere we read that rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft. Rebellion works black magic on the human spirit. It ruins families. It undermines communities. It breeds divisiveness. It PREVENTS COOPERATIVE EFFORTS.
So God sent poisonous snakes to fix their problem of grumbling. Nothing quite fixes one’s attention on what is important like a good snake bite. The snakes bit many people. Many people died. So the people got the idea that they had spoken one time too many against the Lord and against Moses. They stopped grumbling and begged Moses to pray the Lord to take away the serpents.
We’re not told that God took away the snakes. Instead God told Moses to set a bronze snake up on a post. Anyone who looked up at that bronze snake was healed of the snake’s venom. There is an old Jewish reflection on this story that I find pertinent today.
“It was not the sight of the serpent of brass that brought with it healing and life; but whenever those who had been bitten by the serpents raised their eyes upward and subordinated their hearts to the will of the heavenly Father, they were healed; if they gave no thought to God, they perished.”
This interpretation adds an insight to what we read in Numbers. The way we read the story it seems that no matter what was in peoples’ minds, if they looked up at that bronze snake they were cured of their snake bite. But it was looking up to God that really mattered.
Jesus too seemed to see in that ancient story that God looked for the state of the peoples’ hearts. When Jesus spoke with Nicodemas as recorded in John 3: 14-15 the Lord compared believing in Him with looking up at the bronze serpent for the ancient Israelites. Indeed, the word “snake” is suggestive in the Bible with the terrible affliction called sin. In Genesis 3 it was the serpent that beguiled Eve so that she ate of the forbidden fruit. This first act of disobedience polluted the human race.
Jesus said that believing in Him was like the ancient Jews looking up at the bronze snake. Though Jesus was not in any way like the snake, he said, “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up.”
It is a curious thing that Jesus should compare His benefit to us sinners with the bronze statue of the very serpents that inflicted the lethal bites on the Israelites. But we get the point. And the Jewish midrash seems to catch this point. It was the upward look of need to God that God wanted to see in His people. In trust they looked up to the source of their healing—that God commanded Moses to make.
Well, we must think of what Jesus said in the passage before us this morning. Jesus had just been introduced to two Greek men who wanted to see Him. Instead of speaking with them directly Jesus seemed to be filled with the sense of His destiny.
“The hour has come for the Son of man to be glorified.” He then spoke those words that defined life in a way we find so hard to grasp: “He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” Jesus then turned his thoughts to His Father in prayer. “Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour?” It seems Jesus didn’t know what to ask of His heavenly Father now. He dreaded losing His life—that led to finding it, fulfilling His purpose.
After Jesus spoke people heard sounds from the skies that seemed to be like thunder. They looked at Jesus who was evidently enveloped in His profound reveries. They heard His prayer. And then Jesus turned from praying to notice those who were around Him. “This voice has come for your sake, not for mine.” The Hebrew word meaning voice is the same as the word for sound. They heard a sound; Jesus heard a voice. The sound made them look up as the voice made Jesus look up. They thought it was thunder. Only Jesus seemed to know that it was His Father speaking to Him..
It occurs to me that their inability to understand what God spoke to His Son then was like our inability to understand the roar of a lion. Another lion will hear the roar and no doubt hears significances that we can’t pick up. All we hear is the fearsome sound. But another lion hears a voice in an idiom it recognizes.
Then Jesus spoke to those with him referring again to that episode about which we read this morning from the Book of Numbers. “When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to myself.” John tells us that when Jesus said this He referred to the manner of His death—by crucifixion. Those who gathered around Jesus caught this meaning. They were totally confused.
“We have heard from the law that the Christ remains for ever. How can you say that the Son of man must be lifted up? Who is this Son of Man?”
The Book of Daniel that was so important to the Jewish people in their time of trials, used this term Son of Man in a very suggestive way. We read of Daniel’s vision:
I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a Son of Man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before Him. And to him was given dominion and glory and kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away.
The kingdom of the Son of Man was to have no end. How could Jesus speak of being crucified if He was this Son of Man?
I think that those who gathered around Jesus were not skeptical so much as they were puzzled. This section begins with the Greeks who wanted to see Jesus, so Philip and Andrew brought them just in time to hear Jesus speak these haunting words. The strong words Jesus spoke about those who do not believe were said to people who felt positively toward Jesus, it seems.
There is much here that it would be interesting to discuss with you this morning. But the clock is not my friend. So I must get to the specific word Jesus said that leaps out at me from this intense passage in the Gospel of John.
Jesus said, “The light is with you for a little longer. Walk while you have the light, lest the darkness overtake you . . . while you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light.”
This sounds nearly gnostic; it seems so mysterious. But Jesus could scarcely have been more practical. Jesus used the term “walk” as a synonym for “believe” in order to make clear that to believe is not merely to hold ideas about Him. To believe is to live in a certain way. “Walk” is a very Hebrew idea that refers to life as it was lived in a day before there were transportation vehicles. In Jesus’ day too people mostly got from here to there by walking. The Hebrew word for “go” is “walk.”
So believing in Jesus was walking with Jesus. Jesus’ ways were ways of light. No hidden-ness. No deceitfulness. No posturing as religious. No complaining. Just straight-out walking with Him who went from Bethlehem to Calvary out of submission to the will of God.
What is the application of all of this to us? All of us are here this morning because we have ideas about Jesus that we think of as believing in Him. We all find difficulty in walking in Jesus’ way. Our difficulty is that life is filled with events that sometimes make us fearful and sometimes grumpy. We feel the way should be more clear than it is.
We should draw a line in our minds connecting the grumbling of the ancient Israelites with our own grumbling. I doubt that God will send snakes to bite us when we grumble, but for sure when we are rebellious inside our grumbling eats at us. It poisons us. And the only way to be cured of our poisonous grumbling is to look at Jesus. But Jesus says that it’s not just looking at Him, which we do in some sort of religious way, particularly as we near the season of Lent and Easter. Instead, looking at Jesus means deliberately following in His way—in particular when doing what Jesus said to do is the least appealing thing in the world. The Sermon on the Mount is to jar us out of lethargy in following Jesus. “Blessed are you when men revile you…” and “bless those who persecute you.” All of that.
When we choose to live other than Jesus leads us, we walk in darkness. Walk your way and you stumble and fall. We feel out of sorts. But if we look at Jesus and will humble ourselves to follow Him, we walk in the light. Then we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from our sin.
Let us walk with Jesus. We will walk with Him if we try to walk with Him. We won’t be walking with Him if this idea isn’t even in our heads. We little realize how our future is sculpted by what we choose to do in moments like this when God puts before us a clear idea to which we must respond. Let us choose to follow Jesus.
Let us pray: O God, thank you for sending us Jesus, the light of the world. Help us to follow Him. Amen.
Pastor Stuart D. Robertson
Faith Presbyterian Church
West Lafayette, IN 47906
Posted by faithpres at February 18, 2007 09:30 AM