Faithful

Charlotte Collins Reed
Christ Church Episcopal
March 14, 2021

4 Lent B 

          Robin Williams, the late actor and comedian, listed “no snake handling” as number 10 among his top 10 reasons to be an Episcopalian.  His list includes things like believing in dinosaurs, all of the pageantry-none of the guilt, a color coded church year and pew aerobics.  However, despite the comedian’s assertion that there is no snake handling in the Episcopal Church, today we must handle some snakes, scripturally if not literally, since the reading from Numbers is full of snakes, and in the gospel reading Jesus compares himself with one. 

The story from Numbers is a bit of a challenge.  First, the snakes.  This morning’s story is hardly the first time the people have complained against God.  The psalms are full of complaints against God.  The book of Lamentations is a whole book of, well, lamentations.  And this morning’s occasion of complaint is not the first time the people have complained in the wilderness.  Very early in their travels in the wilderness, the people complained that the water they had to drink was so bitter that they could not drink it.  So God showed Moses a piece of wood he could throw in the water and make the water sweet to drink.  Just ½ chapter later in the book of Exodus, the people complain to Moses that he has brought them out of Egypt, where at least they had food to eat, into the wilderness to starve to death.  So, God gave them manna, bread from heaven, to satisfy their hunger.   One chapter later, the people are thirsty again, and again accuse Moses of bringing them out of Egypt to kill them with thirst.  And again, God provided the people with water, this time by telling Moses to strike a rock with his staff and water will come from the rock so the people can drink.  Not long before our passage this morning, the people complain exceedingly about their lack of meat in the wilderness, and God does send a wind that brings them quails, but God also sends a plague along with the quails, so that doesn’t work out quite so well for the people.  But for the most part, God has been exceedingly patient with the complaints of the Hebrew people.  Until now.  This morning when the people grumble against God and Moses, God sends poisonous serpents to bite the people and kill them.  I would really like to know what has sent God over the edge this morning, so I can modify my own complaints accordingly.

          Secondly, what exactly is it about looking at a bronze serpent that has anti-venom properties?  If, indeed, God has sent poisonous snakes with a venom strong enough to kill people when they are bitten, simply looking at a bronze snake on a stick is not going to effect a cure.  Plus, just last week, we heard the 10 commandments from the book of Exodus, and one of the commandments clearly prohibits the making of idols.  A bronze snake on a stick with healing powers seems a lot like an idol.  So how are the people cured?

          These are questions which may not have satisfactory answers.  But what we do know, is that in the wilderness, the Hebrew people are forced to deal with their dependence on God for food, water, safety, and yes, for deliverance from poisonous snakes.  Every single time, even in this instance with the snakes, God comes through.  In the wilderness, the people learn that they can trust God, even when God’s patience is sorely tested because of their lack of trust.  The bronze serpent alone likely does nothing for the people. The serpent does not heal them.  Idols have no real power.  But when the people see the serpent raised on the pole, God’s intent is for them to know of God’s healing power and trust that God will save them, which God does.  God has taken a symbol of death, the snake, and turned it into a promise of God’s gift of life.  The people learn, yet again, that God is faithful and will save them.  We hear the words of the psalmist this morning, when just after describing the people’s rebellion in the wilderness, the psalmist writes “Let them give thanks to the Lord for his mercy and the wonders he does for his children. Let them offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving and tell of his acts with shouts of joy.”  God is faithful.

Jesus alludes to the story from Numbers when we hear him say “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.”  The cross on which Jesus will be lifted is also an agent of death, a cruel, humiliating death.  And yet, the love of God will take that agent of death and transform the cross into an agent of life through which the whole world can be saved.  When we look at the empty cross on Easter morning, and at any other time, we can know and trust God’s love and healing power-the power that transforms death into eternal life. 

          In our own wildernesses, whether a Lenten wilderness, or the pandemic wilderness, or whatever our wilderness may be, we are forced to deal with our dependence on God for endurance, comfort, healing, or other relief.  God’s answer may not seem merciful at first, because what we want, of course, is to exit the wilderness about which we may have complained without ceasing.  But the message of Scripture is not that if we complain, God will send poisonous snakes to kill us.  The overwhelming message of scripture is that that God’s heart’s desire is to move us from rebellion to obedience, from fear to faith, and from death to life.  And God is faithful.

                                                                             Amen.