Raising the Bronze Snake
Notes
Transcript
ME
Lent for those of you who do not know is one of two major seasons in the Christian year, the other being Advent. Lent is a time of restoration, to remind us about what Jesus did for us as he turned his face toward Jerusalem. Some people fast beginning on Ash Wednesday which was February 17 until the night before Easter Sunday for 40 days from a favourite food, or technology, to focus more on Jesus and mimic his 40 days in the wilderness. It is a time to examine ourselves in preparation for Good Friday, where traditionally we remember the death of Jesus Christ by crucifixion and then on Easter Sunday the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Last week, we looked at one symbol which reminds us of the mission of Jesus: the temple. We will continue with another symbol today: the bronze snake, and in two weeks time one last symbol: fallen grain. All are found in the Gospel of John.
Tim reminded us last week that Jesus cleansed the temple because the officials turned the worship and sacrifice of the LORD into a marketplace of swindlers. Jesus, in a rare moment of righteous anger, drove the moneychangers out of the outer court. When asked what authority he had to do so? He spoke of a temple which will be destroyed and rebuild in three days. It was about his death and resurrection.
WE
Now swindling at a marketplace at at temple is probably not going to happen today. For one, the temple system has been replaced by Jesus so that we no longer need to offer sacrifices in order to be right with God. At any rate, the temple was destroyed in 70 A.D. But there are still swindlers in our midst; they just might look a bit different. It could be corporate executives cheating on their taxes, or insider traders who manipulate the stock market. It’s the landlord who suddenly raises the rent without warning or the boss who tries to cheat his or her workers of their wages. It’s companies that pollute and use up the earths’ resources without giving back. And this is one sin: greed. Sin of all types will always be with us until Jesus returns.
Jeremiah 17:9 speaks of our human condition:
9 The heart is deceitful above all things,
and desperately sick;
who can understand it?
GOD
Today, we are going to look at another image which emerges from a conversation between Jesus and the Pharisee-teacher Nicodemus, also in John’s Gospel. A quick note on the Gospel of John: it was written by John the Evangelist, a disciple of Jesus around 70 A.D. According to John 20:31, it was written so that we would believe Jesus is the Christ, the son of God, and that by believing him we may have life in his name.
If last week is to remember Jesus the ‘temple’ which was destroyed for our sake and rebuilt in three days by His heavenly Father, to cleanse the temple so we can honour the blood of the lamb, this week, we are to remember to believe Jesus so we can love God and witness to the world.
So if you have a Bible, turn with me to John, chapter 3, verses 14-21.
14 And 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.
Here lies our central image, and it refers to an incident in the Book of Numbers when Moses was leading the Israelites out of the wilderness. The journey was long and they needed to go around Moab. The Israelites started to grumble against God for rescuing them despite providing food to eat. They wanted to go back to Egypt. Now if it had been the first time they did that, perhaps The LORD God would have been more lenient. But their disobedience has extended to Aaron, Miriam, the sons of Korah, and even the leaders of each tribe, reaching even Moses himself who disobeyed and God’s holiness must act, not unlike Jesus’ cleansing of the temple. God cleanses a wayward people he called his treasured possession.
6 Then the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died. 7 And the people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against you. Pray to the Lord, that he take away the serpents from us.” So Moses prayed for the people. 8 And the Lord said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live.” 9 So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live.
It’s interesting that serpents are both the antagonist, biting the people in verse 6, as well as the symbol of healing and rescue in verse 8 . The fiery serpent of bronze, set atop a wooden pole, would save all who chose to gaze at it. Now we come to our scripture in verse 14-15 of chapter 3, where we pick up from the final words Jesus has to say to Nicodemus about new birth. Nicodemus is under the impression there’s a religious way to enter eternal life in the kingdom of God. Jesus says to him that he must be born above by water and the spirit. The way is not through religion, but by an act of God that Nicodemus needs to believe in.
14 And 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.
This is why everything hangs in the balance of believing in the Son of Man who is lifted up to receive eternal life. How can the Son of Man, a title Jesus uses for himself be lifted up? He is nailed to a cross. Instead of a serpent, it is Christ himself. Instead of a pole, it is two coarse wooden beams fastened together. For Nicodemus and us, there’s no guarantee of salvation apart from new birth. It doesn’t matter what your heritage is, no lineage whether you are part of the Jewish people or were born in a Christian family. Nor does our religious understanding matter. Being a teacher well-versed in scripture, or you reading Christian blogs, watching youtube sermon messages, or listening to Hillsong all the time, does not save us.
Only new birth.
Yet the good news, the gospel, is that no matter how great our sin, the cross is greater! No sin is impossible for the sacrificial act of Jesus’ blood, that is his death, to cover!
This humiliating act of being hung cursed and naked, an example of Roman power against all those who would claim to be a King, the result of the outpouring of jealousy from the relgiious establishment of his time, this cross of humiliation to faithless eyes is also the cross of exaltation to the eyes of faith. The very act of his crucifixion exalts him who is King and son of the Most High!
Knowing what Jesus has accomplished for us, how are we to respond?
First point:
I. Believe in God’s Unique Son and Be Saved from Condemnation
I. Believe in God’s Unique Son and Be Saved from Condemnation
16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.
Most of us memorize John 3:16 off by heart. Many scholars believe beginning from John 3:16-21 the words are no longer those fromJesus’ conversation with Nicodemus but John the Evangelist himself. John is making a commmentary on the conversation and bringing to focus why he chose this visit with Nicodemus to include in his gospel. Again, it is about believing in the name of Jesus. But I imagine John as he reflected on this story finally put two and two together.
Everything was done out of love.
Yes, love! But love that is costly. It cost the father his son, whom he sent to the world freely but also ultimately gave to be crucified. And while Nicodemus was very much focusing on his own entrance into eternal life, John realizes that what Jesus said was broader in scope than just the Jewish people. It has implications for the whole world. John realizes the world as it is was in a state of unbelief, and therefore are condemned already. So Jesus wasn’t sent to condemn an already condemned world, but to save it. And yet it is those who have experienced the new birth who perceive the world as condemned. Only a condemned world is in need of saving. And only a patient who knows they have a terminal illness look for a miracle cure.
Yet like Nicodemus, so many believe we aren’t in such a terrible state. In fact the story of Nicodemus at least here indicates more of a curious adventurer seeking for religious academic dialogue though undoubtedly shaken by what Jesus said. We too need to be shaken, awakened to our state before God. So let God unveil the truth through John about the state we are in, and why we need Jesus, the light of life:
Point two:
II. Flee from the Works of Darkness and Come to the True Light
II. Flee from the Works of Darkness and Come to the True Light
19 And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. 20 For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. 21 But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.”
The metaphor is apparent that the light who has come into the world is Jesus. Yet whereever Jesus went, he saw the works of darkness. He saw the exploitation of the vulnerable at the temple outer courts, the greed of the moneychangers, the oppression of the religious elite who demanded an impossible standard in conforming to a twisted form of God’s law and the corruption of the high priests who compromised with the Roman authorities to stay in power, and that’s just within the Jewish system. He would soon see how much exposing all these would cost him his life. And in particular in the gospel of John, whenever Jesus tells the people one of his I am statements, it leads to arguments and unbelief. As bad as the Jewish system has become, it is still safer than this radical teaching of love and forgiveness and sacrifice and surrendering everything. So the more Jesus exposed the more he was hated because people in their consciences knew they were guilty, and they would ultimately be judged for it. But darkness is so temporarily rewarding and alluring they, we would rather remain in the dark.
The words says there is a love for darkness. How can people who love darkness love anyone but themselves? Let alone the world. But a love of darkness naturally means a hate of the light. This tug of war in our soul continues to torment us whenever we sin. It begins with a thought, a desire for our pleasure or another’s misfortune. The thought then affects our emotions which gives greater fuel to our desires, whether it is to lust after illicit images or videos, or anger towards others, or hatred and jealousy when someone else gets promoted to that position you wanted. We sit in darkness, going over these thoughts over and over. Soon it’s all we think about and it turns us further away from the true and the right thing to do. Instead we feel self pity and that somehow we’ve been cheated or unfairly treated. We want to quench that appetite, so we go ahead and do something about it, turn on the computer or phone, find a few people who will agree with what we say and slander that so and so, or say something we know we will regret but at that time it’s the only way we can even the score, and the damage is done. All the while Christ’s light points into the darkness and tells us to flee from it towards the light of the cross where there is the true and only relief from the cycle of endless sinful thoughts and deeds!
Not everyone in Jesus’ time, however, were repulsed by his light. It was the outcasts in society, the prostitutes and the tax collectors, who knew the darkness in their lives, who knew that they needed a new birth, who ended up believing in him. And just like them, only when we recognize our need for new birth, when we have the eyes of faith to see the world as it is, that we see a world God so loved that in costly love he sent his son to be the bronze snake through which we can gaze up on and be cured of the venomous firey serpent!
YOU
Yesterday was March 13, and on that day in 1998 the LORD God saved me. In an act of mercy, he lets me gaze upon the bronze snake, when at night after a bible study I was invited to believe in Jesus with my Asher small group. I was humbled before the cross realizing what Jesus did for me to save me from my sin and unbelief and turn towards him as my LORD and Saviour. Just as the temple (Jesus) which was thought to be destroyed was rebuilt in three days, His resurrection is my assurance of new birth. I will never forget that evening.
However, each morning when I wake up, I would ask myself if I still believe what Jesus did for me? So belief is both a one time event for those of us who especially weren’t born in a Christian family, but also an ongoing daily surrender to believe in his name.
But God’s word reminds us his heart is larger than ME, he longs for the whole WORLD to be reconciled to our Father. He longs for his son to be recognized and exalted among the nations. I lament and grieve that it’s so easy for me once I have received the benefit of salvation, to be cavalier and lax on being his witness to the world, even the world around my family. Sure, my whole immediate family was saved within the first five years of my salvation, and so were my two grandmothers and aunt, but I have to confess I have not had the same fervor as I did when I first gazed upon the bronze snake, to pray for other family members’ salvation, and finding intentional opportunities to share about Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection as the Saving King to my loved ones.
Friends, if you have not believed on Jesus is, he is the only son whom God his Father sent to save us from unbelief and the endless cycles of sin and shame and reconcile us with our Creator. Place your trust in him, and let him open your eyes to see, and your heart that you may believe.
Brothers and sisters, we need to share this message to the world. I have been hesitating to start an Alpha course because I am afraid we won’t be able to invite anyone. With lockdowns it’s even harder to connect with people, and most of my relationships are with believers. But maybe I am wrong, maybe you have someone in your mind who is open to hearing about Jesus. Prove me wrong. Let me know.
Let us never be ashame to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ, lifted up so we can be saved. Raised up three days later so we can experience new birth.
Let’s pray.