Frequent readers will know I occasionally blog a sermon. Here's the one I preached in PTC Chapel today, picking up on a key verse in the Gospel of John: 3.14. See what you make of it. Comment and critique welcome.
John 3.1-17.
Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. He came to Jesus by night and said to him, ‘Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.’ Jesus answered him, ‘Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above. Nicodemus said to him, ‘How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?’ Jesus answered, ‘Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished that I said to you, “You must be born from above.” The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.’ Nicodemus said to him, ‘How can these things be?’ Jesus answered him, ‘Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things? ‘Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man.
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. ‘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 ‘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.
Lifted!
The people
recognise their sin and say to Moses – pray to the Lord to take away these
serpents: they are bad news, offensive, they kill us. Moses prayed on behalf of
the people and the Lord answered. The Lord said, ‘Actually – give them another
snake!’ You see how annoying the Lord
can be at answering prayer? The very thing they never want to see again, lift it
higher, says the Lord, so they can’t miss it. Lift this offensive thing higher.
So the Lord instructs Moses to make a poisonous serpent: out of bronze, not a
wriggly one, and lift it high. Let them look it this offence, this tempter from
Eden, this cursed one wriggling on its belly, with the mouth and the forked
tongue and the poison – let them look and tremble. But actually – it will give
them life. Or as Wisdom 16.6 puts it, it will be for them ‘a symbol of deliverance’.
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 –
says our Gospel this morning: John 3.14.
How do you
feel about that link between serpent and Son of Man: snake and Saviour in the
same breath. Offended? What would Nicodemus the Pharisee and other teachers of
Israel have made of Jesus’s words? Many commentators now say that comparison is
stretching it a bit in the Greek, it’s not made explicit.
But Martin Luther, of
whom we’ll be hearing a bit more this year of Reformation 500, liked it. In a sermon from 1538 he says,
“Christ nailed to the cross” is our “bronze serpent,” for faith in him frees us
from “the threats and terrors of the Law, sin, death, wrath, and the judgment
of God.”
Artists over the years have liked it too – there’s a picture of St John
the Evangelist, a woodcut and print, around the same time as Luther, and St
John is lifting up a chalice but it’s a chalice with added value – let me show
you – see a serpent is rising up out of it. The serpent has mingled with the
blood of Christ – snake and Saviour. It’s culturally offensive, yes?
Other
paintings and artwork over the generations have been interested in this as
well. But we don’t need a serpent in our chalice this morning – we’ll send it
away!
The thought I humbly offer to our community this morning is
that the snake-Saviour connection probably isn’t as helpful as the idea of lifting – being lifted up - which of
course runs across the Hebrew Scripture and John’s Gospel too. I’m intrigued
and helped by the theme of lifting as essential to the Good News of God in
Christ. The bronze serpent was lifted, offensive though it was, for the
purposes of healing and saving that community.
Jesus was lifted, on the cross
that instrument of torture, a gruesome spectacle, yet for the purposes of
healing and salvation. The lifting, the raising high of that which must be
seen, confronted, engaged with - however offensive to the eyes, however
shocking to the soul - has a place in our faith journeys.
So what will you and I gaze upon today which has been lifted
up for us to see? Is it images, perhaps, of the torture marks, the gunshots
wounds inflicted on West Papuan elder David Tarko? Deeply offensive, and yet
lifted up, via media platforms and through the bravery of those who know, so
that we might see and pray, react and act, for a community’s deliverance. Lift
it up.
Perhaps there are
aspects of church and community life in our world which need to be lifted and
looked at again, even if it’s an uncomfortable spectacle. Wiser people than me
in the Pacific can give examples on behalf of the Pacific.
In Northern Ireland at
the moment, some horrible things are being lifted, literally: the bones of
babies and young children. In years past there were Church run ‘mother-and-baby’
homes; supposedly places of sanctuary and care for unmarried mothers and their illegitimate
babies, because pregnancy out of marriage was such a scandal. One home in the
small village of Tuam – it was in operation from 1925-1961 – has 17-20
underground chambers where human remains have been found: the remains of very
young children, 35 foetal weeks to two-three years. We look at this offence and
ask in 2017, what on earth was going
on back then? And what do Church and society need to repent about and learn for
the future? Lift it up. Look at it. It’s
deeply offensive but for the sake of our healing – lift it up, don’t avoid it.
These two
examples carry a lot of pain. Do they seem like another world from the jazzy
chorus we sang at the start of worship about the power of lifting up – I’ll
praise the name of Jesus, lift up the name of Jesus, for the name of Jesus
lifted me.
They’re not a world away, actually. Many, many followers of Christ
do know the reality of being lifted. We can testify to it. We encounter deeply
sinful horrors in the world and tremble before the raised serpent, yet we can
look upon them and engage with them by the grace and in the power of the one
who knew such horror but rose above it. The name of Jesus lifted me, a
Christian sings with utter joy and gratitude, because his lifting on the cross
and from the grave and to the skies gives me hope like none other.
The
human experience of being lifted gives us comfort and delight. Dad scoops the
little one up whose legs are tired from walking and has started to shed tears.
He sits them on broad shoulders high up.
Lifted! They don’t have to walk in
their own strength anymore, they’re carried, and they laugh with delight – on
top of the world. We feel the weight of sin and shame very acutely sometimes
and need to be lifted from it. And the classic evangelical error is, of course,
to think we can earn that elevation, we can make it happen. No. It’s the
lifting up of the Son of Man that suffices and releases mercy, forgiveness,
grace in such measure it defies logic. It’s a lifting up in love. More than we
could ever fathom.
We must
forever lift our gaze to marvel at that. As Thomas Kelly wrote many years ago
in his hymn, Inscribed upon the cross we see in
shining letters, God is love. When we fix our gaze on
that, our hearts overflow. And we find, perhaps, that John 3.14 sets the stage
for John 3.16 most wonderfully: if I may take the liberty….
For God
so loved the world, that he gave and lifted up the Son, so that all might be
lifted.
Amen.
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