Here we are again.
This week we find ourselves in the wild yet again. We are in the wilderness as God sets
challenges upon the God’s people and saves them by having Moses set one upon a
staff. And then we have the
conclusion of Nicodemus’ meeting with Jesus that happens in the wilderness of
the night, where it is made known to us who Jesus is, and what radical love God
has for all God’s creation.
So what is the wilderness of the night? It is the darkness that God set light
into in Genesis. The darkness that was before God's
creating activity. The
darkness that God becomes a pillar of light for Israel as they are led through
the wilderness in Exodus. It is
the same darkness that is discussed in the beginning of the Gospel of John,
where a light is shone into the darkness and the darkness does not overcome
it. This is a primeval darkness.
This is a darkness that seems to be before God came into and ordered the
world. This wilderness is the
wilderness where we stop and ask God what the heck is up because God does not
appear to be present there.
This wilderness, unlike the others we have explored this
Lenten season, was not made by God.
This wilderness was what the world was before God began creating. God pushed this wild-ness aside to
bring light to the world. We do
not have witness of God doing much work in this wilderness. Or God being present in this
wilderness. This is not the desert
that the Israelites wander through in the Exodus. This is not the wilderness of the forest, where wild beasts wander. Bears, wolves, and tigers ready to
ravage unsuspecting prey at a moment’s notice, typically young people in tales
such as the Brothers Grimm collected.
God shows awesome power when God blows this wilderness away in the first
verses of John. In Genesis chapter
one this is the darkness that was extant when God said, ‘let there be
light.’ And then darkness and
light were seperated, ordered by God.
And it is this darkness that we so very often find ourselves in.
We recall that God led the people through the wilderness of
Sinai in the Exodus as a column of fire at night. God was the light that lead the Israelites, that is
those who struggled with God and survived. God led the Israelites through the darkness, God was there
in the darkness with the people of God.
The Israelites followed the light of God to their salvation from the
Egyptians. Then, at some point,
while in the wilderness, the people stopped relying upon God for salvation and
instead looked other places for salvation. At times they even looked to Moses as their savior, and
Moses got a big head about it, you have God do great works through your hands
and see if you don’t get a big head. They were soon wandering and not following the light of
God. But God was still there,
still in the wilderness of Sinai with the people.
Today's scripture tells of such a moment. The people began to complain that
indeed life was better back in Egypt.
They were lost and scared.
Imagine a time in your own life when you were leaving something bad for
something good. Perhaps it was
when you left middleschool and entered highschool. Perhaps it was getting clean from an additiction, or leaving
an abusive relationship. Maybe you
are fortunate and have never had a bad situation to leave, I ask you now, for a
moment, for your empathy.
You leave those situations because of a hope you have for
something new. You know that there
is something better and you leave the darkness of the past, hoping to get away
from where there was pain and fear.
You know that there is something inside of you that calls you out of
that situation, tells you life will be better if this change happens. Perahps a friend tells you what they
are seeing in your life. An
intervention is staged. And you
know you have the support of your friends. Together you and your friends venture forth into this new
life together, confident that you will be better off in a new life.
How often then did you want, even do you want, to return to
those hard places because they were familiar? Your hope in the future, in the choices you had made in the
past. But sometimes in reaching
for that future we think that the past was indeed better, even with all it's
pain. Even with being enslaved,
there was certianty. We knew that
even if we did not have enough to eat, there was still food to eat. We knew that there would be a warm
house, or perhaps even something akin to friends who were there with us.
Serpents came upon the Israelites when they were in such a
moment. And these serpents injured
them. But God gave Moses a way for
the people of Israel to heal. That
is, a lifted up bronze serpent upon a rod.
Today's scripture tells of such a moment. The
John reading today includes, what I like to call, the football verse. How many times when watching football
in the eighties did we see someone holding up a sign that read '3:16'? I don't know that this pattern ever
stopped, just less visible on TV now.
This reading, God is again giving us something to follow. We are surrounded by people calling us,
begging us even, to belive in other Gods.
And it is easy for us to get sucked in, after all, we are in control of
our own destinies. And when we are
free of those enslaving voices we are often in the dissonance of peace. A peace that we know not what to do
with. This peace again is
frightening. We become scared and
begin to long for the certianty of the past when we were hurting.
Nicodemus
recognized that perhaps things were not as they seemed, and in the wilderness
of the night came to Jesus. In the
dark of night, the wilderness that is beyond all understanding of wilderness,
Nicodemus realizes that indeed something is not right. What specifically Nicodemus is running
from we do not know. But we do
know from clues in the Gospel of John that there is something awry in the
leadership of the people of God at this time. They have stopped listening to God, and are surrounding
themselves with beliefs that are put above God. They are finding other gods and putting their trust in
them. Nicodemus has perhaps had
enough of this and inquires to this new leader, Jesus, what his thoughts are on
the subject.
Just prior to the reading in John, Jesus tells Nicodemus
that in order to see the Kingdom one must be born from above, and that no one
has ascended into Heaven except the one who descended from Heaven. That is to say, Jesus, the Son of Man,
the Human one, the Christ, has to be lifted up. Has to be the saving thing that people look to when they
have been attacked by serpents in the wilderness. Even attacked by things that go bump in the night. When we are fretting from attacks that
come from the wilderness of the darkest, soupiest night we are not to count
upon ourselves to fix things. We
are not to curl up into little mimics of Rodin’s thinker and create our own
gods. We are to look up to the
serpent, to the Human One, The Christ, The Son of Man, and remember what it is
that saves.
This rod that the serpent was lifted upon then, what is
it? Is it the cross that Christ
was on? The reading from John
today may make you think that.
These two readings are together intentionally. But I am not so sure that we should make such a quick leap
to the Gospel of John from this story in Numbers. Perhaps though this rod, with serpent upon it, is a reminder
of the column of smoke and flame that initially led the Israelites out Egypt
and through the desert? Here is a
reminder that indeed God is present, still leading the people through the work
of Moses, even though God may not be as visible.
And then in Christ being lifted up, what of that? Lifted up on the cross right? No. That is not the conclusion to be made here. Here Christ is lifted up as God
incarnate, the real presence of God among us, who we look to when we are
scared, when we are in pain, when we want to return to where we have been freed
from. This is not a Christ of
agony, but a Christ of love. The
World is at stake here. God has
come to Earth in order to save it.
Not just the people Israel.
Not just the Christians, not just humanity, but the whole wide world,
everything that God created in the beginning is saved by Christ, who loves the
whole world.
Jesus is lifted up in a few short weeks, but not by God, by
human hands. Humans who have made
their own gods, who are very scared of losing the power they have built up for
themselves. Humans want to lift up
Christ because we are afraid of life on God's terms. We are comfortable in hardship, where we know what is going
on, where we have built up our own little gods that give us life. Today's scripture tells of such a
moment, where we are given a chance to look upon the work of God elevated above us, to be freed from our inward focused
selves and instead focused toward God's work in our lives. In this wilderness of the night do you
look down at your feet for guidance?
Do you look around you for the next quick fix that will give you
security? Or are you looking up at the saving power of God, shining into the
murky darkness so brightly that in order not to see this light, you must be
hiding in shadow?
Look up, be blinded.
It is scary. It is
different. It will tear you away
from your old self. Do it alone,
do it with a group, just do it.
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