Snakes on a Stick

Numbers 21:4-9

From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; but the people became impatient on the way. The people spoke against God and against 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 detest this miserable food.” Then the Lord sent poisonous serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many Israelites died. The people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned by speaking against the Lord and against you; pray to the Lord to take away the serpents from us.” So Moses prayed for the people. 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.” So Moses made a serpent of bronze, and put it upon a pole; and whenever a serpent bit someone, that person would look at the serpent of bronze and live.

John 3:14-21

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. 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. 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. For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. 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.”

I have a snake bias and serpents are just Bible snakes in my book.  My bias is I don’t like ‘em!  I also have a God bias.  My God bias is that God SO LOVES the world, and God sent Jesus NOT to condemn the world, but to save it.  For those reasons, while I’m sure Moses and the people genuinely BELIEVED that God sent the Bible-snakes as punishment in that first lesson, when I look back through Jesus’ time on earth, I’m more inclined to think the Bible-snakes were more likely just a natural consequence of the people’s impatience.  

To me that makes more sense… not just for back then, but for last week!  This past week several governors stood up and basically said…  “Why have you brought us up out of the land of fully opened bars and restaurants to die in this locked down wilderness? For there is no taco Tuesday and no happy hour, and we detest these miserable masks.”  Then the people burned their masks and opened their bars. Inevitably the Lord now, just like back then, will allow the natural consequences of those choices to happen.  Infections will surge, new variants will take hold, more people get sick, and more people will die. 

Still though, an all powerful God allowing natural consequences to happen… how is that loving?  The answer, I think, is because real love isn't manipulative.  Love doesn’t make choices for the other, even when the other is making a TERRIBLE choice!  LOVE certainly does all it can to convince the other to choose the better path, but in the end, love allows free choice or it isn’t really love, is it? The end of this Bible-snake story shows that truth just as much as the first part does.  In the end, God doesn’t do what the people ask.  God isn’t the people’s puppet any more than the people are God’s puppets.  This is a mutual relationship founded in love.  So God does not magically whisk away the poisonous Bible snakes… God does not take away the consequences of the people’s previous choices.  But God, still deeply in love with God’s people, does provide a pathway through… God loves them THROUGH their impatience.  God loves them THROUGH their privileged complaining.  God loves them THROUGH the slithering, poisonous, creepy consequences of their impatient whining.  God loves them THROUGH all that by telling Moses to put a non-lethal version of those lethal Bible-snakes on a stick.

 

This story from Numbers might as well have been downloaded from the New York Times just yesterday!  These vaccines we’re lining up for are literally a non-lethal version of the lethal thing itself and the syringe is the stick it comes in!  We too, after being whiney and impatient, are still deeply loved by God, and have been offered a pathway through this time.  A path provided by God through the hands and hearts and minds of gifted scientists who worked night and day to offer us, God’s whiney but still beloved people, a path out of death and into life.

Today marks one full year of online only worship for our congregation.  None of this last year was God’s punishment.  Sadly much too much of this past year was, however, the natural consequences of our impatience as a people.  We chose as a nation to turn wearing masks from an act of love for one another into a battlefield.  We’ve shown never ending impatience wanting to get back to normal, and as a result we’ve ignored the scientists who told us how to get through.  We have failed for a year to find a way as a nation, to be generous enough to allow one another to stay home AND at the same time not starve, loose our homes, or loose our businesses.  In that failure we chose as a nation NOT to work together to knock the virus out in one, single, unified, patriotic blow. 

In spite of all of our national impatience, selfishness, and constant complaining that we “Hate these miserable masks!” I  am still convinced, because I live on THIS side of Jesus’ time on this earth, that God still really DOES…  SO LOVE THIS WORLD.  All through this past year, in spite of all the selfish whining and pig headed stubbornness of our nation, God, out of God’s infinite love, has been constantly inviting us to come into the light… to follow Jesus in the way of selflessness, to give of ourselves for the good of our neighbor, and humble ourselves to be led by the science.  

As a nation we didn’t do so well, but here and there, people shone the light in the darkness, doing what could be done in the places they lived.  Now, after a year that light has really grown and we’re closer to the end than we’ve ever been.  I’m even getting hopeful and Kelly will tell you that hardly EVER happens!  We’re not yet in the Promised Land and there is still more virus out there than there every were Bible snakes in the wilderness, BUT… God continues to love us.  God continues to call us to the light.  God continues to coax us out of death and into life.  God calls us to follow the light and follow Jesus, caring first for our neighbor, doing things like wearing our masks and feeding the hungry.  

We’ve been at this for one whole year and God is pleading with us now, just like God was pleading with us a year ago… for us to make choices in these next few months that will lead to life and not to death.  God still… SO LOVES THIS WORLD… that God is asking us all now, when the end really is in sight, to remain faithful and patient, until all of world that God SO loves, makes it safely across the finish line.  Amen.