Heavy Lifting

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday March 22, 2009, the 4th Sunday in Lent.

Numbers 21:4-9
Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22
Ephesians 2:1-10
John 3:14-21

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen

There are some things that are unavoidable for the preacher. John 3:16 is one of them. Since I have been in the pulpit, I have preached this piece from John’s gospel twice. Today makes three. Now for the third time, I begin with this thought on this most beloved of all bible passages:

Page ten of the current edition of the Gideon Bible contains this in the introduction:

“There is a verse in the Bible which has been translated into more than 1,100 languages. It tells of One who loved us with an everlasting love. The verse is here recorded in 27 languages of the world which are understood by more than three-quarters of the earth’s population. That verse is John 3:16.”[1]

The introduction continues with this verse translated into languages ranging from Afrikaans to Vietnamese. These simple words have a tremendous impact on people everywhere. “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.”

Some call this “the Gospel in a nutshell.” Others call it a confessional summary of the Gospel. Believers and unbelievers alike have a special connection to this verse. For many, this verse is seen as the answer. Of course, if this is the answer we had better do a good job of identifying the question. Because if this is the answer, then it has got a lot of heavy lifting to do.

Heavy lifting is nothing unusual in our readings today. Our reading from Numbers is another example of heavy lifting. In the time of this passage from the Old Testament, the people had become impatient, other translations say discouraged and faint hearted. They spoke against Moses and they spoke against God.

The people were sick and tired of making the journey to find the promise of God, the fulfillment of the promise made to Abraham. They detested the miserable food and preferred the thought of square meals and unending slavery. When starving; hard work under harsh conditions might be seductive to the faint hearted. So the Lord sent serpents, poisonous serpents, among the nation and people died.

It doesn’t take long for the Israelites to realize they had erred, so they came to Moses and they asked him to “pray to the Lord to take away the serpents from us.” Yeah, Moses has gone before Pharaoh, and the Lord on behalf of the people; and now the people who had been complaining about his leadership are at Moses’ feet crying for him to solicit the mercy of the Lord. Moses has done some heavy lifting during his days. Today they ask him to do some more.

Moses asks on behalf of the people and does as the Lord directs. Moses makes a serpent of bronze and puts it on a pole. A people who made a golden calf know how to do flamboyant metalwork, so I imagine a bronze serpent at least twelve feet long. I don’t know if it is coiled or stretched out, scripture is silent. Regardless, you know this is one big piece of heavy metal.

Imagine the US “Don’t Tread on Me” flag, but as a bronze sculpture on the end of a stick. This is what Moses lifts up above his head. He lifts it so that whenever one who was bit would look upon it; they would live.

While considering this passage, I wondered why looking at the bronze serpent healed the bitten Israelites? Maybe this miracle simply served as a reminder of who the Lord is? Surely it shows the mystery and sovereignty of God Almighty. Seeing as how the Israelites had forgotten who the Lord was in this passage, that wouldn’t be such a bad idea.

It is a reminder that the Lord sent the serpents of both injury and healing—along with the implicit reminder of the serpent of deception from Genesis. Snakes in the ancient world were a symbol of death and danger; and fertility, life, and healing.[2] This ties into the sovereignty theme well. While the nation would always tie the serpent to the story of the banishment from the garden it would also show that the Lord can use the same symbol for the good of the people, to heal the people, to redeem the people.

These are the sorts of things poets wonder about on a warm summer’s night. These musings are lovely; they come to the aid of the mystical and mysterious pieces of our souls to the glory of God. But they surely aren’t the sorts of questions that are going to be asked on the quiz. (Wait, didn’t I tell you there was going to be a quiz?)

Some things are certain. We can be sure that this is the kind of story that would be popular within a people who carried their history by oral tradition. There isn’t a twelve year old boy alive who would ever forget this story after hearing it. So when Jesus uses this image in our passage from John’s gospel; the listener returns to this time in the wilderness.

Jesus tells the people that in the wilderness, God is there. In the wilderness of forty years in the desert, God is there. In the wilderness found within the temple, God is there. In the wilderness found within the depths of our lives, God is there. God is present with them on that day as during the days of Moses. We read this story today knowing that God is here with us too. This was true when it was said, and it is just as true today.

Now that’s some heavy lifting.

We read “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.” But where the verb for lifting up in Numbers implies picking something up to look up toward it, the New Testament verb we translate as lifting up means to raise physically or to exalt. So as Moses lifted the serpent to be seen, the Son of Man is lifted to be praised and lauded.

Again, that’s heavy lifting.

Scripture tells us why the Son of Man is exalted, why the Son of Man is lifted. The Son of Man is lifted so that those who believe may have life eternal. So, what is eternal life?

Eternal life is a gift. It is given to everyone. Imagine if you will, everyone on earth is given a flashlight; a light that will never be extinguished or burn out. Imagine we are all given this light.

We are saved by the grace of the sovereign God. We are freely given the gift of grace, a gift of eternal life given to us even though we could never do anything to deserve it. This is the light we have received.

Now imagine we turn on this light and it shines brightly showing us the way. This is what happens when we demonstrate faith. We are saved by grace through faith. It is these two things together that make eternal life, the things that make life worth living.

This is the Good News, to take to the eternal life we begin by turning on the light we have received. 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.

So life eternal is a quality of life instead of a length of life, a way of living today that transcends how we see living in our bodies, our earth, and our time. The Son of Man is lifted up not just for the afterlife, but for our present lives. This changes how we live and breathe and love and behave not in some future time and place, but here and now.

Yet, Jesus warns us that when we have a light and don’t bother to turn it on, when we receive the gift but do nothing with it the gift is useless. It hangs like an albatross around our necks; and Jesus warns this would happen.

He warns us that people love the darkness rather than the light. And this evil, this darkness is heavier lifting than we could ever imagine. It’s a pity that we don’t have to do this lifting, but still we choose to. It’s lifting that we drop when we turn on the light. It’s lifting we drop when we exercise our faith by the grace God has freely given us.

Moses did some heavy lifting in the desert. Jesus did some heavy lifting too, and the lifting of his body at Golgotha is not the half of it. The body of the Lord might have weighed even less than a twelve foot long brass snake.

Eternal life is for all who believe, for those who are saved by grace through faith; now that’s some heavy lifting. Thanks and praise to the one who alone is willing and able to lift us. Saved by grace through faith, that’s the answer to today’s quiz.

[1] Holy Bible, King James Version, Gideon International, page 10.
[2] New Interpreter’s Study Bible, notes on Numbers 21:4-9.